Chapter 20: What It Costs

Padraig's POV

The Brightwater Group held its owners' dinner on the second Tuesday of every month.

It was held in the private dining room of a hotel in Boston, with twelve chairs.

I had found that out from the invoices.

I sat in the car outside for ten minutes with my phone in my hand.

I had learned one thing in the last week, and I meant to keep it.

I typed: I'm about to go into a room and name myself to the people who own the clinic.

Then I typed: I'm also giving up the loan on the Corrigan firm, and you can tell me no.

Her answer came back before I had put the phone down.

Do you want to?

Yes.

Then go. Tell me after, not before. I'm already holding enough.

I read it twice, and I went in.

A man in a dark suit met me at the dining room door with a list.

"Mr. Ellsworth," he said. "You're not on it."

"I'm the client you billed for three years," I said. "I think the owners would like to meet me."

He took me in himself, because there was nothing else to do.

Twelve people sat around a long table over the remains of the fish.

I knew three of the faces from the annual report.

Nobody stood.

"I'm Padraig Ellsworth," I said. "Four years ago I gave an order on the phone to make a young woman stop bothering me."

"I thought she would be sent to a school."

A fork stopped halfway to somebody's mouth.

"At your clinic near Lausanne she got electric shocks, medication and hypnosis for three years."

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