Chapter 22: Gone by Morning

Lucian's POV

I woke at six and her side of the bed was cold.

There was a note on the pillow, in a hand much neater than mine.

I read it standing by the window with my bandaged palm held out from my body.

It said: I'm going out through the gate on my own. Don't send anyone. Don't follow me. I'll tell you where when I know.

Under it she had written the number of her friend at Mount Sinai and one more line.

You're allowed to be afraid. So am I.

My head of security found me in the hall with the paper still in my hand.

"She took the black sedan," he said. "She told the gate she didn't want men."

"Term four."

"She made it."

"She did."

"I can have two cars on her in five minutes."

"No."

He looked at me for a while.

"Boss, a day ago a man put poison in her coffee."

"Aldo is on a plane. The man who poured it is in a car on the Jersey Turnpike and he's not coming back."

"And Driscoll?"

"Is in a prison ward with a federal agent on his door."

"Then what is it?"

"She isn't mine to follow," I said.

I had meant it as a command to myself.

By noon I regretted it.

I spent the day in the study and read the same page of the Commission's ledger four times.

Renata's son came in at ten, in a borrowed suit, a tall boy with her eyes, and stood at the edge of my desk with his hands behind him.

"My mother says I start today."

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