Chapter 17: The Right Name

"No," I said. "I stole something better."

Meghan drove us to Red Hook in the gray light, and neither of us talked.

Mitchell sat in the back with his cuffed wrists in his lap, looking at the back of my head.

At the loft I pulled the folded page out of my waistband and laid it on the worktable under the lamp.

He read it standing up.

When he reached his own name, he put one hand flat on the wood.

"They wrote it down," he said. "Both of them signed it."

"And the trustee initialed it."

"My mother signed her name to me being a stud."

He said it without any expression at all, and I knew it was the worst thing he had ever read.

Meghan squeezed his arm on her way to the door.

"I'll photograph it and put it somewhere safe," she said. "Go to bed, both of you."

She didn't say it like a joke.

The door closed behind her, and the loft went quiet except for the gulls.

I turned my phone off and put it in a drawer.

Lawrence would find the blue room empty soon.

I did not care.

Mitchell washed the blood off his lip at the kitchen sink, and I stood behind him and watched his shoulders.

"They hurt you," I said.

"A cop leaned on my arm. I've had worse from a plank."

"Mitchell."

"I'm all right, Hastings."

"Stop calling me that."

He turned around slowly with the towel in his hand.

"What do I call you?"

"The other thing."

He looked at me.

"Lana," he said.

It was low and unhurried.

I crossed the floor and took the towel out of his hand.

I laid my palm along his jaw, careful of the cut.

"You came over a wall for me with cameras on it."

"I'd do it again."

"I know." My voice wasn't steady. "That's the problem."

He shook his head, and I kissed him.

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