It would be easy to think that Quinn is simply trying to scare me—that she is trying to make me think that, even now, when she has no cards, she is still playing a game I don’t understand.
But it doesn’t feel like a bluff. It feels like the truth.
There’s always a cost.What will the cost of this be? It won’t be tome and Bailey. It can’t be. Owen has ensured that it won’t be to us. Quinn, despite herself, confirming the same.
She holds my gaze, not blinking, not turning away. But I turn away from her, looking down at the cliffs below, the whole of Èze stretching out below. The cliffs and the houses. Frank’s house. Her father’s house.
I can feel her eyes still on me. But I keep my eyes on those cliffs, giving myself a moment to process, to figure out what she wants me to hear in what she’s not yet saying. And so I don’t give it away—how deeply that’s penetrating. Her threat. Her threat that sounds less like a threat and more like a fact.There’s always a cost.
If it won’t be us, then what will it be? A loud thumping in my ear, in my heart, in my shoulder. Where his wound is. Nicholas’s wound.
Because I start to know the answer. The answer inside this question: Will it be to Nicholas?
With all the talk today of our safety, not once did anyone discuss his safety. Not once was Nicholas mentioned.
And it starts to coalesce for me. There is always a cost when you come for this family. Nicholas would know this. He would know this better than anyone.
Of course, this would be the trade Nicholas is most willing to make, knowing he doesn’t have much time left. Isn’t that the trade he would willingly make, even if he had all the time in the world?
Nicholas would still make that trade for Bailey. We would all make that trade, without a moment’s hesitation, for our children.
I turn in the direction of the back room—toward those windows we can’t see through. Quinn’s eyes following mine. She is as worried as I am about what is happening with Nicholas and her father. Maybe for different reasons, but worried all the same: her fate is as locked up as mine in what is happening in that room.
This is when I realize something else. Or perhaps, I should say, when I realizesomeoneelse. Someone else who is involved in this. Someone else who, not unlike Nicholas, is willing to do what needs to be done to protect his children. Someone who would protect his children, even from themselves.
It hits me, like a bomb. The throbbing in my jaw. My heartbeat coming in behind it. The inside of that back room. All of it spinning together. Because I know it. Suddenly and irrevocably.
I know it, as sure as I’ve ever known anything: It isn’t just Owen and Nicholas who are behind this.
One Year Ago
“I was a little surprised to hear from you,” Frank said. “To be honest.”
“I’m sure.”
Frank and Nicholas were in Nicholas’s office at The Sanctuary, Nicholas’s lake house out in Texas Hill Country. They were having late-afternoon drinks, just the two of them. The sun was going down over the lake, the early evening air placid and welcoming. The world around them, for the moment, easy.
“Should I not have reached out?” Nicholas asked.
“No. Of course. I’m glad you did.”
Nicholas topped off Frank’s whiskey, taking a seat on the couch across from him. It was strange being back in this room, having a drink with his oldest friend. Strange and also eerily normal—eerily familiar. It was almost like they were back where they belonged, sitting here together. Because, in a way, they were.
“Well…” Nicholas said. “When I read about Bradley’s wedding, it seemed like it was time…”
Frank forced a smile, but Nicholas could see it. Frank was showing restraint. Nicholas could read it in Frank’s face. He could imagine everything Frank wanted to say: That it was past time. That it had pained him, every day, the way they had parted. That Nicholas was, to this day, the only real friend Frank had ever had. Didn’t that count for something? If it couldn’t count for everything, didn’t it get to count for something?
“It’s pretty wild, wouldn’t you say?” Frank finally said. “Bradley meeting a young woman from Midland, let alone marrying her?”
Nicholas shook his head, letting out a small laugh. What were the odds? Bradley was marrying a young woman from Texas. A young woman who grew up less than a hundred miles from where Jenny, Bradley’s own mother, grew up—less than a hundred miles from where Nicholas himself grew up. A young woman (a high school English teacher) who, from what Nicholas was gathering from Frank, was a lot like Jenny had been. Lovely and kind and smart. As honest as they come.
Nicholas understood why Frank found it crazy, but it just felt to Nicholas like more proof—did he need more proof at this point?—that as far away as we try to get, we end up where we start.
“The wedding’s going to be in Midland next month,” Frank said. “Big ballroom wedding at her parents’ country club. It’s going to be awful, I’m sure. Cold chicken dinners and a dessert buffet. Ten-piece band that can’t play for shit. But lots of whiskey. Would love to have you there to help get me through it.”
“You may want to hold on that invitation.”
“And why is that?”
