The Man With the Silver Watch
Gerard Voss looked older than Arthur remembered, but not smaller.
Some men shrank with age. Gerard had dried into himself. His suit fit without kindness. His white hair lay perfectly against his skull. The silver watch on his wrist caught the stairwell light again as he lifted one hand from the banister.
"Arthur," he said. "I thought I might find you here."
Arthur kept his body between Gerard and Maya.
"Why?"
Gerard's eyes moved to the child's bare feet, then to Arthur's coat around her shoulders. He did not look surprised enough.
That told Arthur almost everything.
"This building is not safe," Gerard said. "You are upset. The girl may be confused. Let me arrange proper help."
Maya's fingers closed around the back of Arthur's jacket.
Arthur felt it, barely, through the cloth.
"Say her name," Arthur said.
Gerard's face did not change.
"Whose?"
"The girl."
A pipe knocked inside the wall.
Gerard smiled the smallest smile Arthur had ever hated.
"I don't know her name."
Maya whispered behind Arthur, "He does."
Gerard's eyes flicked toward her. The mask cracked for less than a second. Not anger. Recognition.
Arthur stepped down one stair.
"My sister left a tape."
This time Gerard went still.
There it was. The first honest thing his body had done.
"Livia was not well," Gerard said softly. "You were young. Your mother was exhausted. Your father had enemies. There were things you could not understand."
"Try me."
Gerard lowered his voice.
"She was going to ruin the family."
Arthur almost laughed. The sound would have been ugly, so he kept it behind his teeth.
"By having a child?"
"By making accusations she could not prove. By attaching the Keane name to people who would have bled your parents dry. By refusing every reasonable solution offered to her."
"Reasonable."
"Private care. Privacy. Time." Gerard's eyes hardened. "Protection."
Arthur thought of Livia's voice on the tape. They taught my hand to write what my mouth refused.
"You forged her disappearance into a choice," Arthur said.
"I preserved what your parents begged me to preserve."
"A lie."
Gerard's mouth tightened.
"A family."
Maya made a small sound behind Arthur, not a sob, not quite a gasp. Arthur did not turn. He could not afford to take his eyes off Gerard.
A door opened below.
June Mercer stepped into the stairwell carrying a laundry basket against one hip. She was a compact woman in her late sixties with cropped gray hair, a cardigan stretched at the elbows, and the flat stare of someone who had seen too many respectable men explain away bruises as misunderstandings.
"Mr. Keane?" June said.
Gerard glanced down at her.
"This is private," he said.
June looked at Maya's feet.
Then she looked at Arthur.
"Doesn't look private to me."
Arthur felt the first real breath enter his lungs since the park.
"Mrs. Mercer, my sister trusted you."
June's face changed at Livia's name. Grief passed through it, followed by something harder.
"Then bring the child inside," she said. "And don't leave that man alone with either of you."
Gerard's smile disappeared.
"Arthur, you are making a mistake."
"No," Arthur said. "I made it fifteen years ago. I'm done."
Gerard leaned closer over the banister.
His voice dropped so low only Arthur and Maya could hear.
"If the child found you, they will move Livia tonight."
Arthur's hands closed around the briefcase handle.
Gerard had meant the words as control.
He had given Arthur a deadline.
June opened her apartment door at the bottom of the stairs.
Warm air and the smell of soup rose into the hallway.
Maya moved first, quick and silent, past Arthur and down toward June.
Gerard did not try to stop her. Not with June watching. Not with Arthur standing close enough to break the fiction of politeness.
When the door shut behind Maya, Arthur stayed on the stair.
"Where is Gray Thistle?" he asked.
Gerard's expression went cold.
"You won't get inside."
May you like
Arthur looked at the silver watch.
"Then I suppose I'll have to make someone open the door."
