“Okay, wow.” I might not have gotten all of that. But Noah seems to know more than I do. “I don’t get it. Easton Wherclift is a humanitarian legend. I researched before we spoke.”
“He’s done plenty of good in the world,” my cousin agrees. “But he’s also in the running as the world’s shittiest dad, and that’s saying something.”
“No kidding.” I consider my own father. How proudly he wore his Numr Ne Ad shirt.
Noah watches my face. “What’s going through your head right now?”
“My dad wasn’t perfect,” I say slowly. “He’s pretty damn far from perfect, actually. But he was a good father to me.” Not always. Not when money and greed got the best of him. “He raised me to be a good person.”
“That’s what I mean about shades of gray. People aren’t all good or all bad. Your father’s a dickhead, but he’s also a decent dad who raised you alone and did a fine job of it.”
Noah’s words from earlier float through my brain. Shades of gray make up much of our moral code.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
He hesitates. “You don’t miss much, huh?”
“No.”
My cousin draws a breath. “Luke doesn’t rub shoulders with criminals because he is one. He does it to help them.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does.” Noah looks up at the ceiling like he’s choosing his next words with care. “I need to explain something in strict confidence.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious, Hazel.” His eyes drop to mine, icy and somber. A shiver rolls through me. “What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room.”
“Fine.”
There’s a long, heavy pause that floats in the charged space between us. “I work for an organization that specializes in rehabilitating inmates who are…” he pauses, searching for the right word, “misunderstood. Incarcerated individuals with skills and traits required for very specific tasks on the outside.”
I stare at my cousin. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
He doesn’t. He looks deadly serious.
“Luke and other freelancers like him are deliberately given only bare-bones information,” he continues. “To share this level of detail with you, I sought permission from my employer. Believe me when I say this is much more than most people know without signing a strict NDA or having a gun to their head.”
I’m certain he’s joking about that last part. Pretty sure. “You’re saying Luke is involved with this—this organization.”
“Correct.”
“So why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he’s a man of his word. He took an oath to keep it a secret. An oath that preceded his promise to you.”
“So what are you saying? You guys are out there acting as some benevolent force, giving prison inmates a second chance so they can go out and save the world?”
“Yes,” Noah says. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”
This can’t be real. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know you know Luke Lovelin is a good man. You know that in your gut, Hazel. The same gut that told you your father was guilty and Easton Wherclift is a self-congratulatory cockwaffle.”
“And also, Luke’s father.”
