Chapter 13: Chair at the End

Howard Aldrich held the phone at arm's length and studied the photograph.

"You will not go," he said.

"I know," Leigh said.

Conroy stood at the dining room window with his fists shut.

The family lawyer sat at the end of the table with a pen in her hand.

"It's bait," the lawyer said. "The only question is who set it."

Leigh knew who had set it.

She also knew what Talia wanted, because she had lived it once.

Talia wanted Leigh alone on that dock at midnight, with no witnesses and Blaine standing in the right place.

"Then we spring it ourselves," Leigh said. "With a lot of people watching."

Howard looked at her over his glasses.

"You are not afraid," he said.

"I'm furious, Grandfather. It makes me think clearly."

He gave one slow nod and told Conroy to call the detective from the thermos case.

By evening the detective was in the study with a map of the harbor, and Conroy had a second piece of news.

"Jonas Hartwell sent six of his security men to the gate this morning," Conroy said. "Before I asked."

"Before you asked," Leigh said.

"I don't like that he knows what I'm about to need." Conroy rubbed his jaw. "I'm taking the men anyway."

On Saturday, at ten minutes to midnight, a policewoman in Leigh's camel coat walked onto the Gull Street dock.

She kept her hood up and her head down.

Leigh watched from an unmarked van at the top of the lane, far from the water.

The lawyer was with her, and a radio, and Jonas Hartwell.

She had not invited him.

He had simply been there when the van doors opened, in his gray coat, with his eyes on the dock.

"You shouldn't be here," she said.

"This is as close as I'll let you get."

"And you? You hate the water."

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