Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(50)

I went in after her. She was standing in the tub with her back to me. “I feel stupid,” she said tearfully. “But I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Natty, I did send Leo to Japan. It’s true. If that was a mistake, it was also the best I could do at the time. We will go to Japan to bury Leo but we can’t go right now. It’s too dangerous and I have things to arrange here.”

Slowly, Natty turned to me. Her eyes were furious and red, but dry. She opened her mouth to speak and that was when the tears started. “He’s dead, Annie. Leo’s dead. Leo’s really dead.” She took the wooden lion statue out of her pocket. “What will we do? No Imogen. No Leo. No Nana. No Mom and no Daddy. We have no one, Anya. We truly are orphans now.”

I wanted to tell her that we had each other, but it felt too corny to say. Instead, I drew her closer to me and let her cry.

Simon Green knocked on the door. “Anya, I have to take Natty back to Mr. Kipling’s now. He doesn’t want to compromise my house as a safe place for you.”

I took Natty’s face in my hands and kissed her on the forehead, and then she was gone.

I sat down on Simon Green’s bed, and the cat jumped onto my lap. I considered the cat, and she considered me with gray eyes that reminded me of my mother’s. She wanted to be scratched so I obliged her. There were so many things I couldn’t solve, but this cat’s itch I could relieve.

I tried to imagine what advice Daddy would have given me for the situation I was in.

What would Daddy say?

Daddy, what would you do if your brother was dead because of decisions you made?

I came up with nothing. Daddy’s advice only went so far.

The room got darker and darker, but I didn’t bother to turn on the light.

*   *   *

Imogen’s memorial service was two Saturdays away, and I felt Natty and I both needed to go to pay our respects. The problem was that I was still a fugitive, and so I decided it was time for me to resolve that situation. I couldn’t very well spend the rest of my life holed up in Simon Green’s attic studio. The six days I’d already passed there had been long enough.

The only person I was allowed to call from the apartment was Mr. Kipling.

“Three things,” I told Mr. Kipling and Simon, who were at the office. “I want to go to Imogen’s service. I want to surrender myself to the state. I want to arrange for Natty to go to a boarding school, preferably one in another state or abroad.”

“Okay,” Mr. Kipling said. “Let’s take these one at a time. The boarding school is easy enough. I’ll begin talking to that teacher of Natty’s she likes so much.”

“You mean Miss Bellevoir.”

“Yes, exactly. And I agree that this is a good plan, though potentially one we won’t be able to put into motion until next school year. Moving on. I fear that if you attend Imogen Goodfellow’s service, you’ll be arrested, which means that we have to arrange the terms of your surrender before that time.”

“Even before the events of last Friday, I’d been talking to the new district attorney’s office,” Simon Green interjected.

“You do remember that Bertha Sinclair’s staff people made the contribution to Trinity, don’t you?” I asked.

“That was just politics,” Mr. Kipling said. “It was nothing against you, and it’s actually an advantage to us that Charles Delacroix lost because the Sinclair regime can basically disavow all the actions of the predecessor. The Sinclair people sounded amenable to arranging something with you. A short stay at Liberty and then probation, maybe. People are more sympathetic to you than you would think.” Mr. Kipling said that he had planned to meet with Bertha Sinclair on Wednesday, but would try to get the meeting pushed up.

I asked if they had any leads on who had orchestrated the hits on my family.

“We’ve been discussing it. It was so complex,” Simon Green began. “Three countries. Three hit men. It could only have been someone with the ability to arrange a multifaceted operation.”

“And yet the mission was also 66 percent a failure,” Mr. Kipling added.

“Maybe the person wanted to fail?” Simon Green suggested. “You said you didn’t think it was Yuji Ono but when I think of the other obvious options, it doesn’t seem like it could be anyone else. Jacks is in jail. Mickey doesn’t have the skill set. If not Yuji Ono, the only person I can think of is Fats. He comes from the other side of the family but some people think he’s making moves to overthrow Mickey. It would be to his advantage to have all the direct descendants of Leonyd Balanchine out of the picture.”

I didn’t think Fats would want to kill me. “But what if it was Mickey? He knew where I was and I’m pretty sure he knew where Leo was, too. What if after I lost favor with Yuji Ono, Mickey decided to avenge his father’s shooting? Yuri Balanchine has been ailing a very long time, and it hasn’t been a pretty decline.”

“Lost favor with Yuji Ono?” Mr. Kipling asked.

“After he proposed marriage and she refused him,” Simon Green explained.

“Marriage?” Mr. Kipling asked. “What’s this? Anya’s too young to marry anyone.”

“I never told you about that,” I accused Simon Green.

Simon Green paused. “When I gave Yuji Ono the letters, he informed me of his plans. I didn’t know for sure that you had refused him. I just guessed that was what had happened.”