They walked down the docks together and said goodbye by his car in the parking lot. She kissed him goodbye, slow and lingering.I love you, she said, like any other morning.See you tonight.
Because, of course, she counted on the fact that she would.
It felt like another injury. It was also further proof of what he had lost, what he had allowed himself to lose. A fitting punishment for what he’d had no right to reach for in the first place.
Now, it would wake him at night, like a jolt. That last moment with her, juxtaposed up against the first, playing back on an unforgiving loop.
It was just as well. He’d turn on the dingy light by his twin bed and put on a pot of coffee. He’d get back to work.
He was mapping the organization in detail. The entire family. He made charts on Frank. Detailed charts. He made charts on all six of Frank’s children, knowing that they were the key to it—what Owen would need to do next.
At first, and for a long time, he tried to figure out how to do this on his own. Every mapped-out plan, every possible escape route.
There had to be a way to do it on his own, he thought. But there was always the moment that he realized he needed him to pull it off.
Isn’t this how it worked? How you start is so often where you need to return. That was certainly the case here.
There was only one road. One road to help Hannah and Bailey. One road to keep them safe.
And it always led him back to Nicholas.
Thirty Years Ago
“Well, since you asked…” Nicholas said. “We finally met the boyfriend.”
Frank perked up. Of course he did. If Frank wanted to hear anything, it was something about the kids.
“The math whiz?”
“I wouldn’t saywhiz.”
“If you didn’t say it, how would I know?”
They were sitting on Frank’s back deck, looking out over the bay and downtown Miami. Nicholas had been there for almost two weeks now. He had gotten on a plane as soon as Frank called to tell him. Nicholas and Meredith had both gotten on a plane. Meredith was trying to help with the kids.
How do you begin to help with six children (one of whom was barely out of diapers) who suddenly, and out of nowhere, no longer had a mother?
It was the freakiest of things. Frank’s wife, Jenny, had gone to visit an old friend of hers in the Florida Keys and they had taken a helicopter ride for the friend’s birthday. A sunset helicopter ride where they drank champagne from plastic flutes and saw a variety of marine life—stingrays and sharks and dolphins.
That night, Jenny’s leg started to swell up and she decided to turn in early. She decided to turn in early because it wasn’t just her leg, but also a sharp pain in her lungs. Her friend had offered to take herto the local emergency room, but Jenny thought there was no need. She’d rather, she said, get a good night’s sleep. She’d go and see her friend’s doctor in the morning, if necessary.
But Jenny didn’t wake up in the morning. That swelling—a blood clot—either from the helicopter or the plane ride to Florida (or both) had traveled to her lungs. And Jenny was gone. Just like that.
Frank was left without his wife. He was left only with his guilt. So much guilt that it was threatening to subsume him. Taking away his sleep, his energy, his sanity.
It had been Frank’s idea, after all, that Jenny take a trip with her friend—to take a few days away from the kids, a few days for herself. The morning of the trip, Jenny had decided she didn’t want to go, but Frank had insisted.It will do you good, he’d told her. The first lie Frank had ever told her. The words Frank kept repeating to Nicholas, like an omen and an apology in one.
Nicholas refilled Frank’s glass of whiskey, tried to keep the conversation on the lighter side, to keep it away from work. Work was a mess, which was another problem. There were defections and anger and a big trial coming up. Nothing Frank wanted to be reminded of, nothing that he needed to be reminded of.
You never need a reminder when everyone is gunning for you, just like Nicholas didn’t need a reminder that his hands were in too much of it.
It was something Nicholas had planned to discuss with Frank, getting his hands out of so much of it. Nicholas planned on starting the discussion of paring his involvement all the way back.
But now there was this.
For now, only this.
“What’s the boyfriend’s name again?” Frank asked.
