Chapter 11: Fifty-One

"Who were you talking to?" I asked.

Anthony turned around in the dark kitchen with the phone still in his hand.

He was in slacks and no shirt. I was in his shirt.

"Lizzie," he said. "You should be asleep."

"Fifty-one percent of what?"

He put the phone face down on the counter and didn't answer.

"Anthony."

"Sit down."

"I'll stand."

He looked at the floor, and at the ceiling, and finally at me.

"Your father left a voting trust," he said. "Fifty-one percent of Brannigan Group. I hold it. In sixty days, it's yours."

The refrigerator hummed.

"Mine," I said.

"If you take nothing from your brothers and ask them for nothing until the sixtieth day after the funeral."

I put my hand on the counter.

"The coffee. The guest room. The lobby."

"No."

"The envelopes of rent in the drawer."

"Those were yours. You gave them to me. I never touched them."

"You knew," I said. "That night in the plaza. The night on the stairs.

"You knew what I'd be worth in sixty days, and you were holding my hands."

"I knew what you'd be worth the whole time." His voice was low. "It was never why I held your hands."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it was your father's test."

I laughed, a short ugly sound.

"If you'd known," Anthony said, "every no you gave your brothers would have been for the money.

"Gerard wanted to know whether you'd say it for yourself."

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