Chapter 18: The Lobby

I answered on the carpet of Chloe's pink bedroom, with her watching.

"You're at the Cape house," Flynn said.

His voice was level and quiet, and there was a loud room behind it.

"How do you know?"

"Because your sister posted a photo of you holding Gran's book, and tagged the address." A pause. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Is Clayton there?"

"Yes. He..."

"Good. Stay with him. I'm on the next plane."

He hung up before I could say I was sorry.

Chloe lowered her phone with a little smile.

"Don't let me keep you," she said. "Take the book. Take whatever you like. It won't help."

Clayton drove me to Boston with the sketchbook on my knees.

Neither of us said anything on the bridge.

At the hotel by the Athenaeum he carried my suitcase to the desk.

He stood there in his wrinkled shirt, with no watch on his wrist.

"I'll sleep in the car," he said. "I can't go back to the apartment. It's in Dad's name."

"Clayton."

"I'm not asking you to forgive anything." He looked at the floor. "I wanted to do one thing that wasn't paid for."

I got him a room.

I put it on the card Mom had unfrozen to bribe me, and I didn't feel bad about it.

Flynn knocked on my door at ten past eleven.

He was still wearing his work apron under his denim jacket, with a smear of cyan ink on one cuff.

A duffel hung from his shoulder.

I stood in the doorway with my hand on the frame.

"The programs," I said.

"Boss pulled them off my desk at three and gave them to the new kid." He shifted the bag. "He said not to bother coming Monday."

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