The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: No

Lena's POV

I threw the first term back at him through my own front door.

I had not slept.

I sat on the floor of my condo with my back to the wall, the ledger on my knees, the go-bag at my feet and the deadbolt thrown.

The rain had stopped.

Ruston Way lay quiet and silver under the glass, and the water beyond it was the same flat color as the pages.

At four in the afternoon the elevator chimed.

I knew the footstep.

He had been standing in the lobby for two hours.

The doorman had called up twice and I had said, let him stand.

I opened the door on the chain.

He stood in the hall with his coat open and his hands at his sides.

He had not slept either.

He had a day's dark beard, and the broken bridge of his nose looked whiter than usual.

"You said not to follow you," Niko said.

"I did not.

"I came to say one thing, and I will go."

"Say it."

"I should have told you the day I read the name," he said.

"I read Rautio on the oldest paper at one in the morning, and I let you sleep.

"I let you eat at his table.

"I let you walk into that house, because I wanted you to say it first.

"I wanted it too much."

"You waited for me to say it," I said.

"Yes."

"For your own reason."

"For mine," he said.

"Not for yours."

I took the chain off.

I did not open the door further.

I stood in the gap with my arm along the frame and the knife in my sleeve, and looked at him, and the whole six weeks stood in the hall between us.

"Here is what you did," I said.

"You bought my name in a lawyer's office before you knew my face.

"You put two men on my gate.

"You had a woman at the insurer give you my schedule.

"You walked onto my deck with your men and said the word mine.

"You held me in your building for six weeks on a claim, and every kind thing you did was a kind thing you did to a witness."

"That is not true," he said.

"Which part?"

"The kind things were not for a witness."

"I can't tell," I said.

My voice cracked, and I hated it, and I let it.

"I can't tell the difference, Niko.

"You wouldn't either, if it was you.

"I walked into your kitchen and ate your spaghetti and I fell into your bed, and every time I did it I thought, I chose this.

"And you were reading a name under a marker in the next room."

"I read it after," he said.

"I read it after you fell asleep."

"It doesn't matter when."

He took that.

I watched it go into him.

"Here are my six terms," I said.

I counted them off on my fingers, against the door frame.

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