Chapter 13: Any Day

"It was ninety-four percent," Ansel said. "Not certain. I would not tell you a guess."

"You told your team to watch me."

"I told them to verify."

"For eight days."

"Yes."

He stood at the bottom of the stairs in a pair of sweatpants with one hand on the newel post.

He did not reach for me.

I almost wished he would, so I could hit him.

"You let a lawyer in a gray suit sit on your sofa and tell me who my mother was," I said.

"I needed to see his face when he saw yours."

"You needed."

"If I had told you the first morning, you would have walked straight to Norfolk," he said. "I thought if you stayed here you would be safe."

"I would have been informed."

"Yes. I decided that for you. That was wrong."

I had expected excuses.

The plain answer was worse, because I had nothing to push against.

"I carried my mother's box out of that attic," I said. "You stood next to me. You said, we go in the front door."

"I meant it."

"You meant it and you knew."

"Both of those are true."

"Last night," I said, and my voice cracked on it, "I told you that I could feel all of you. And you let me."

His jaw moved.

"That night had nothing to do with the file."

"I don't know that," I said. "That's the whole problem. I don't know one thing you did that wasn't a plan."

"Tessa."

"Our terms said I could leave any day."

He went very still.

"Say it again, so I know you heard it," I said. "Any day."

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