Isn’t this how it happens? You can see the whole chessboard. You organize your life to see it. But you still miss it, the smallest of missteps. The only way you lose.
But the young man behind him is not an officer. He’s also not alone, a young woman on his arm, still dressed up from the night before. He is in a shiny blue suit, she is dressed in stiletto heels and a short dress—both of them looking tired and happy. And they’re staring out at Owen with matching smiles.
“S’il vous plaît, voudriez-vous prendre une photo?”
A photograph. They want Owen to take their photograph. They’rejust a young couple, hoping to capture this moment for themselves. The end of a long night (an all-nighter) in the South of France.
But the young guy is looking a little sweaty and anxious as he hands Owen his cell phone, cupping his jacket pocket. Which makes Owen wonder if he wants to capture a photograph not just because it’s the end of a special night—but also because it’s the beginning of a special day for him too. The beginning of the day he proposes. The beginning of something new.
“Bien sûr, je le ferai,” Owen says.
Of course he will. Owen takes a series of quick photographs for them, the couple posing together. Happy and laughing. Then Owen hands the guy back his phone, offering him a small nod, wishing him luck.
The young guy nods back, which Owen decides to take as the guy wishing him the same. He’ll take it. Because he needs it. They all do today.
They need every bit of luck they can get.
Owen walks aways from the coffee shop, deciding against going inside. Deciding against stopping anywhere else.
He gets back on his bike and keeps going. The only way he can.
Toward Port Vauban.
Toward the boat.
If You Should Lose Your Way…
We are driving at a steady clip down the A8 Autoroute, Paris now far in the rearview, the highway pointing us toward Èze. The highway pointing us toward Èze and an eightieth birthday party, where all of this gets decided.
Seth drives. I’m in the passenger seat beside him. Bailey and Nicholas are sitting together in the back. Bailey leans against the windowpane, taking in the scenery flashing by in the early morning light. Nicholas sitting beside her, taking in Bailey. He seems so happy, even now—even with where we are headed—just to be there beside her.
I’ve pulled out my laptop, and I’m working through all the charts I’ve made. I’ve mapped out everyone in the organization—everyone in Frank’s inner circle, centering around the most important people in his orbit. His family. All of them will be in attendance tonight. Frank and all six of his children, all eighteen of his beloved grandchildren. They’re each important to understand, in one way or another, but none more so than Frank’s successors: Teddy and Quinn.
Quinn, who I keep circling back to, even now.
Quinn, who to me, feels like the key to all this, should we need it. A different lock to turn.
I scroll through to my photographs of her. She is six feet tall and blond and beautiful. She was an all-American volleyball player, who could have gone to the Olympics. But she is, instead, the heirapparent to a crime family. It was a switch that came on quickly—after Owen’s testimony put her husband in prison.
Quinn and Wesley were still newly married when he started serving his sentence. Newly married with twin twenty-two-month-old boys. Boys who are close to Bailey’s age now. Boys who grew up without their father. Boys who—certainly in Quinn’s estimation—grew up without their father because of Owen.
This is the nexus of so much of Quinn’s anger—her husband taken from her, her children’s father taken from them, because Owen turned state’s evidence. Of course, it was Wesley’s own decisions that ultimately landed him in prison—his decisions, his multitude of crimes. But Quinn didn’t want to look at that. Why would she want to look at that part? It would demand that she lean into empathy when anger was so much easier.
I turn around to face Nicholas. He is avoiding my eyes, trying to enjoy his time with Bailey.
“When is Quinn’s husband supposed to get out of prison?” I ask him.
“Wesley? No time soon.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, it looked like he was going to be released after his last parole hearing,” Nicholas says. “It was his first real shot at it, and Quinn made a big push. She activated everyone she could. They had a letter from the new warden about the good he’s been doing inside. They had a letter from the governor. They made a hard push to get him out of there. But the parole board voted against him all the same. Three to two.”
“How recently was this?”
“Two months ago. Next hearing is two years out.”
Two months ago, and now at least two more years to go. Thatwas a fresh bruise for Quinn. It would help explain why she moved so quickly to punish Owen the first moment she felt like she had an opportunity to do it. It explained why she was so willing to punish anyone close to Owen. Everyone close to Quinn’s husband had been punished—with no end to his absence in sight.
