Chapter 5: The Price of Protection

The stain from the blue thread stayed on my thumb after three washes.

I put it beneath a lamp beside a photograph of the oath.

The two marks had the same dull color.

Real dried blood went nearly black at the edge.

I wrote down what I could see and left the rest alone.

Valerio watched from the doorway.

"How many accounts did your father buy from Orson?" I asked.

"Seven that I found."

"How many did he collect?"

"All seven."

I showed him the torn repair register.

Six families had lost homes under Orson's seal.

Two of those families had come through South Rail.

"Your money came out of these pages."

"I don't know that all seven oaths were false."

"You know this one was."

He looked at the copied thumbprint.

"You know something is wrong. We still need the original tested."

"Then open all seven originals."

I took out the marriage contract and wrote a new condition beneath our signatures.

If an oath was false, Bellandi money would repay the people it had displaced.

Valerio read it twice.

"This could empty my accounts."

"Those accounts were full because people emptied their houses."

He signed the amendment.

A van pulled to the curb outside.

Collectors got out carrying red tags and a camera.

One taped a tag to the refuge's meal delivery truck.

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