Chapter 18 - East Pier
I didn't go alone. I was finished mistaking secrecy for bravery.
Noah led the response team; Ruth coordinated from a nearby building. I stayed behind a concrete barrier with an officer, wearing a microphone and a thick borrowed coat. Adrian could see me from the ferry terminal's shattered windows, but he couldn't see the people watching him.
"Claire!" he shouted across the empty platform. "You came."
"I came for the evidence."
He stepped into the yellow light. He held a plastic document case, rain beading on its lid. His right hand shook. For one awful second I remembered us standing in a kitchen arguing over whether to buy a yellow sofa. I'd once known how he took his coffee. I'd once thought that meant I knew him.
"I have the original hospital contracts," he said. "My father kept copies. There's proof Shaw used Daniel's access without permission."
"Then put them down and surrender."
"I can fix this. We can leave tonight."
"No."
He stared as if the word was in a language he'd never learned.
"You don't mean that."
"I do."
His face crumpled, then hardened. "Without me, what are you?"
The old question. The question every insult had been trying to make me ask myself.
"Someone who gets to decide."
He hurled the case across the platform. It struck a railing and burst open, papers sailing into the rain. Then he ran toward the pier's broken end. Officers moved in from both sides, calling his name and ordering him to stop. He skidded at the edge, almost lost his footing, then dropped to his knees.
Nobody touched him until he put both hands behind his head.
When they led him past me, he searched my face for something. Mercy, maybe. Or another chance to make me responsible for him.
"Claire," he said softly. "Tell them I never meant to hurt you."
I looked at the bruise fading along my wrist.
"You did hurt me," I said. "That's the truth."
May you like
Then Noah opened the recovered case and found one last sealed letter addressed to me—written in my mother's handwriting.
THE DOORS SHE OPENED •
