Frank smiled at him, but Nicholas felt something twist up inside him. Maybe because Nicholas was leaving something out. They had been at dinner for several hours and Nicholas still hadn’t mentioned that Owen had reached out to him.
That went against the agreement they made when Frank said he would protect Hannah and Bailey. Nicholas had promised to let Frank know if Owen contacted him (or if he knew that Owen contacted Hannah or Bailey). He insisted that he’d let Frank know immediately. But here they were and he didn’t fill Frank in on the note that Owen left waiting for him in that hotel room in San Francisco.
If something happens to you, they’ll be in danger.
Why? Why was he holding this information back from Frank? It certainly wasn’t out of any loyalty to Owen. No, that wasn’t it.Which gave Nicholas pause: Was it that he wasn’t convinced that Owen was wrong?
He flinched against it, the answer that sprung to his mind before he could stop it. He wasn’t convinced. And, if that was the case, if even a small piece of Nicholas believed that Owen was correct, that Hannah and Bailey were potentially in danger—what did that mean? What did that mean about what actually happened to Kate? What did that mean about Frank’s involvement?
“So, you need to tell me, Frank.”
Frank looked at Nicholas, confused.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me the truth,” Nicholas said. “When did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That someone in the organization was behind it,” Nicholas said. “Someone was behind what happened to Kate, weren’t they?”
“Nick, I would never hurt your kids.”
Frank shook his head. And he saw in Frank’s eyes that Frank meant that. It was what carried them along all these years—that Frank did, in fact, mean that. So why did Nicholas know suddenly, with a blistering clarity, that this wasn’t the whole truth? Was it just Owen reaching out to him?
No. But Nicholas’s reaction to Owen’s note did spark it. It sparked something that Nicholas knew—the thing we know about lifelong friends if we pay close enough attention to what they are saying. And what they leave out.
Frank had readily agreed to help Hannah and Bailey. How was that not the favor? How did that not make them even? Because they could never be even. That was what Nicholas knew for sure now. That was what a part of him knew all along. A part of him apparently knew before Frank even did.
“What happened, Frank?”
Frank looked down at his coffee, and for a moment Nicholas got to believe that he was wrong. What a relief it would be, to be wrong! But then Frank looked up. And it was like Nicholas could see it coming off Frank’s skin—which was reddening and splotchy. He could see what Frank had been keeping in, all this time. What he was finally letting out.
“Let me be clear,” he said. “It had nothing to do with your decision to pull back from work. Or with any issues that arose from that. It was nothing punitive.” He paused. “It had to do with Kate.”
Nicholas felt it, a hitch in his throat. Even at the sound of it now—Frank even saying his daughter’s name now.
“Once your son-in-law became involved with your work, with setting up that encryption system, Kate got nervous,” Frank continued. “She was nervous Owen could be implicated, even if you kept him in the dark. She was nervous about his culpability.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“She started asking questions at work,” Frank said. “She was asking questions in a way that was raising flags.”
“Bullshit. She would have come to me.”
“Nick, she walked into the US attorney’s office and asked an AUSA point-blank if you were under investigation in some way. Which put you on their radar in a new way. And a friend inside the AUSA’s office… he alerted us.”
This stopped Nicholas cold. The new layers of information were shuffling around in his head, trying to find a way to click in. To make sense.
Kate was nervous. She was nervous about what Nicholas had pulled Owen into—nervous enough that she felt she couldn’t ask Nicholas himself. That she couldn’t trust his response. What did thatsay about how his daughter was feeling about him, in the end? What did that say about the fear she was holding inside about her husband’s safety? The fear that Nicholas was the cause of?
“So you knew?”
“Not me directly. But one of my lieutenants, yes.”
“You want me to believe that no one let you know what was going on? Give me a fucking break, Frank.”
“It’s the truth, Nick.”
