Chapter 18: What My Father Did

Ronan's POV

The Compact sat again at noon on Friday, the day after the split vote, with glass still swept into the corners of the terrace.

I stood against the wall behind Sean's chair with a bandage on my cheek.

The four people on my list had not been at their doors.

I had spent the morning with a phone to my ear, and I had found out nothing except that someone had gotten there first.

Erin sat at Sean's right hand in the founder's place, though the seat was still empty by law.

She wore a plain black dress, and she had her ledger flat in front of her.

She did not look at me.

I did not mind. I had her night on my skin, and it was enough to walk on.

"Before the vote," said the Benedetti envoy, "the Compact will hear from the family of the dead man. Mr. Kearney has a statement, I understand."

He said it with a thin smile.

He wanted me on my feet, and angry.

I came forward to the foot of the table.

Sean nodded once.

"My father died nineteen years ago," I said. "I found him on the dock. I was thirteen."

No one moved.

"For most of my life I believed the worst person in this harbor was whoever fired the shot. I looked for that person for seventeen years."

I turned my head and looked at Erin.

She looked back, steady, gray-eyed.

"It was a seven-year-old girl," I said. "She did what the man behind her told her. She thought she was guarding medicine."

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