Keep Her Safe(138)

I meet his inquisitive stare. “I burned it.”

He nods to himself. “See? People like you and me . . . this city needs us.” He leaves me sitting under that lilac tree, with a silver star in my palm.

The points gouging into my flesh.





CHAPTER 62


Noah

“Noah!” My aunt Judy is known for giving fierce hugs, despite her tiny stature. Normally, I love them.

Tonight . . . I grab her hands, gripping them tight until I’m sure the urge to rope her arms around my wooden body has passed.

“How are you doing?” She frowns, peering up at me. “You don’t look well.”

Because I feel like I’m three seconds away from vomiting all over her pink slippers. “I must be coming down with something.”

“It’s going around. Silas came home early today, looking dreadful.”

I swallow my anxiety. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Where he always is. Hiding in there.” She waves a hand toward the office. “I can’t get him to take a day off. Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you, ma’am.”

“Alright. You let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be over here, planning our trip to Italy this fall.” Excitement flashes across her face as she heads back to her seat at the island, her laptop out in front of her.

This must be what it feels like to take a harpoon to the gut.

I’m sorry, I mouth, and then I head down the hall.

I find Silas seated at his desk, his chair turned so he can stare out the window. He doesn’t seem to notice me come in.

I clear my throat roughly.

“Noah. Hi. I didn’t know you were coming over.” His voice is flat, weary.

“I wasn’t planning on it.” I wander over to the chair closest to him and take a seat, avoiding his gaze for as long as possible.

He reaches for his drink. “Want some?”

“No thank you.” I drop the “sir.” That’s a sign of respect, of manners. Silas doesn’t deserve either.

If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. “I was thinking we should talk about your return to work. Things should calm down in another week or so, and it’d be good for you to be there. Put this all behind you.”

How does he do that? How does he sit there, drinking his bourbon, pretending to be this man he’s not? How has he pretended for these last fourteen years?

“The FBI found Betsy,” I blurt out.

“Oh? Are they sure it’s her? They had that false—”

“It’s her. We went to see her.”

“I see.” He takes his time, polishing off the rest of his glass. Would I even notice that stalling tactic if I didn’t know what he was hiding? “Well, at least Grace will have family in her life. And Dina will—”

“I know what happened that night at the hotel, with Abe. What Mom did. What you did.”

I ready myself for his denials, for the way he can so quickly divert, so smoothly lie—he’s proved to me time and time again, from that first night on the front porch after Mom died, that he is a true master of deception.

But instead, he simply takes another long sip.

“This is why you didn’t want me talking to Gracie or Dina, or the feds. You were afraid we’d stumble on the truth. How could you do this, Silas!”

“We never wanted you to know. I never . . . I was trying to protect you.” He sinks back into his chair. Is that relief I see in his eyes? In the way his body slouches? Relief that his secret is finally out?

Having Klein tell me my uncle’s basically a pedophile is one thing. But hearing it from my uncle’s own lips . . . “It doesn’t matter whether I found out or not. The fact is you did it!” I explode, my eyes burning. “She was fifteen!”

“I . . . she told me she was old enough,” he says feebly. Unconvincingly.

“And you never did it again? You never broke your promise to Mom that you’d never do it again? You didn’t lie to her about that?”

He averts his gaze to his desk’s surface. “Sometimes I just need . . .” His voice trails off. He finishes off softly with, “I just need.” He knows it’s wrong.

Rage flares inside me. “And what? You saw Abe and Dunn through that peephole and decided to dial up my mother? Drag her into this mess to save the day for you?”

“It would have been as much her mess as it was mine, if this got out,” he mutters. “But no, I called Canning. He called your mother, sent her there.”

It takes me a moment to get my bearings. “George Canning knew that you were with an underage prostitute and he ordered my mom there to get Abe and Dunn to leave?”

Silas pours himself another drink. “Canning wanted me in the DA seat, no matter what. If I’d known that he’d hang this over my head every single time I disagreed with him on a case he wanted dropped, or a charge he wanted laid, maybe I would have reconsidered it. Maybe I would have taken my licks.

“I told him it was a bad idea to call her, but he said Jackie was the most motivated to have this blow over for everyone’s sake. That she was the only person Abe would listen to. That was before we knew who the girl was. It was just . . . any other cops and none of this would have happened.”