Page 2 of Night of Shadows
"Lex."
"It is nothing."
He waits. Nico's wait should be filed as a weapon. I have watched him wheedle confessions out of other men. I have watched him wait Reznikov soldiers into giving up locations they swore they would die for. I have, on occasion, watched him wait for me.
I pick up the folder and open it.
She’s wearing a gray suit in the photograph, taken outside the federal courthouse three weeks ago. Hair shorter than I remember. Eyes the same. She’s holding the strap of a leather bag the way someone might hold a knife.
Behind the photograph is a second sheet.
Maeve Callahan, thirty-one. Intellectual property attorney, Boylston Street firm. Witness to the execution of a federal informant in a parking garage on Tremont Street six months ago. The informant was a Reznikov associate whose body was found two days later with his tongue cut out.
Behind the second sheet, then the third, a child.
Maeve Callahan has a daughter.
The federal protection order names them both. Maeve Callahan and a minor child, age two, sealed identity per the court. The photograph behind it is small, taken from a distance. A daycare drop-off. A small girl in a red jacket holding a stuffed elephant, her mother's hand on her back.
I look at the date on the federal order. I look at the daughter's age.
I do the math twice because the first time I do it, I’m sitting in my brother’s office in the basement of a Boston nightclub, and the floor has tilted.
My right hand, on the folder, has stopped being steady.
Two. She’s two.
The Boston gala was three years ago.
"Lex."
Nico's voice. Far away.
"Lex."
I close the folder. I do this very carefully because if I don’t, I’ll break something on his desk.
"When does it start?"
Nico looks at me for a long moment. He’s not seen what I just saw. He’s read the file. He knows the witness has a child. He doesn’t know the math. He doesn’t know the gala. There’s a version of my life where he never finds out, because I’m very good at making sure my brother finds out only what I let him find out, and I’ve been doing that for years.
"Tonight," he says. "You'll meet Petrov at her building at eight. She knows someone is coming. She doesn’t know who."
"Eight."
"Lex. Are you all right?”
"I am fine."
"You are not."
"Iamfine," I say, in the voice that has ended conversations in this office for years. Nico looks at me. He doesn’t press.
I stand, taking the folder. I don’t look at the photograph again because if I do, I will not leave this office for an hour, and I have a meeting with Petrov in four.
"Lex."
I stop in the doorway, but don’t turn around. "Yes?"
