Chapter 25: Thirty Percent

"Why me?" I said. "Why not your daughter?"

"Because I've already heard her side," he said. "Nine o'clock. Pendry Marine, on the North Pier. The guard will bring you up."

He hung up before I could say no.

It started to snow a little after eight the next morning.

Nathan drove me down to the North Pier with the wipers going and the heater on high.

"Just the two of us, he said," I told him.

"I heard." He parked across from the gate. "I'll be right here. If you're not out in an hour, I'm coming up."

My mother had kept the baby. She'd given me a thermos of tea and a look.

Pendry Marine was a gray stone building at the end of the pier, older than anything on the Wharf.

It was Saturday. The lobby was empty except for the guard.

He took me up in a brass elevator to the top floor without a word.

The office ran the whole width of the building.

Glass cases along one wall held models of ships. Tankers, tugs, a white ferry with tiny lifeboats.

On the desk was a single framed photo.

A little girl in a yellow life jacket on the deck of a boat, squinting into the sun, with a platinum bob.

Her father stood up from behind the desk.

He was a big man in his sixties, gray-bearded, in a sweater with a hole at one elbow.

He didn't offer to shake my hand.

"Sit down, Ms. McCallum. You had a baby two and a half weeks ago."

I sat.

He took his phone out and set it on the desk between us.

The lobby video was paused on the screen. Blair's hands on the stroller. Her nails white at the tips.

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