Nicholas didn’t answer, not at first. He took a long sip of his own drink, bracing himself. Bracing himself for what he was about to do—what he was about to do for insurance. The ultimate insurance that he could get his family the safety they deserved.
“There’s someone I need you to meet, Frank.”
“Okay…” Frank put his drink down, suddenly on higher alert.
Which is when Owen walked through the door.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I’m going to need that favor now, Frank,” Nicholas said.
Old Friends
“Did you have to shoot me?” Nicholas asks.
They are sitting at the corner table, a first aid kit between them. Frank is working on Nicholas’s shoulder. He is tending carefully to the wound, applying alcohol and cream, a sterilized bandage.
“It felt like the moment called for it,” Frank says.
“Did it?”
“You’ll be fine. I barely grazed you.”
“Oh good. So nothing to worry about.”
Frank lets out a small laugh, meeting Nicholas’s gaze. Then he turns back to the wound, taking a final look at how he’s sealed it.
“That dressing should hold until tomorrow. Maybe forty-eight hours. Maybe. But you’ll need a real doctor at some point.”
“No kidding.”
Nicholas puts his jacket back on, gingerly, taking a deep breath—his arm heavy and leaden. His phone starting to buzz in his pocket, against his skin. His phone, which has probably been buzzing.
Nicholas is running late. They’re well over the twenty-minute mark. Nicholas and Hannah both are out of time here.
“Is that him?” Frank asks.
“Probably.”
Nicholas doesn’t have to ask who Frank is talking about. He knows that Frank thinks it’s Owen.
And he sees Frank turn that over in his head—Frank who is stillso uncomfortable with this. Owen, for so long, on the other side of the line from them. Owen, who could end up on the other side of the line again if he calls in the police, which may just happen if Nicholas doesn’t leave here now. If Nicholas doesn’t end this himself.
Nicholas understands that. He feels it in his own skin. How, despite all the planning, this won’t begin to feel better, not until he and Hannah are gone from here. Not when Frank could still change his mind about his part. They need him for his part. For the insurance of it all. That, after tonight, Hannah will be safe moving forward, with Bailey. And with Owen.
“I should go,” Nicholas says. “He’s not going to wait much longer.”
“Well, he’s going to have to wait just a little longer, isn’t he?”
“Frank, come on.”
“Look, I know you don’t want to go through this again, but…”
“You’re going to go through it again?”
“They’re going to demand a sacrifice on some level, Nick,” Frank says. “They’ll be suspicious if I don’t demand a sacrifice on some level.”
“We’ve gone through this.”
