His shoulders slumped forward, his spine rounding, and a sheepish look appeared on his face. “See, that’s the thing, Nicole. I actually know quite a bit about your life right now.”
I looked him up and down. “How would you—? Actually, you know what? I don’t want to know.” I turned and trotted up the porch steps to the front door of the house. “Stay away from me,” I called to Henry over my shoulder. “And tell my mother—if this isn’t all some elaborate scam—thanks for abandoning me and letting me think she was dead. A-plus parenting.”
“Nicole, wait. Natasha doesn’t even know I came looking for you.”
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “Why are you even here? What do you want from me?”
He placed one foot on the first step of the porch, as if he wanted to follow me into the house, but then thought better of it. His boot moved back to the ground.
“I want to help you,” he insisted, his sharp blue eyes softening. “Please. I think we could be beneficial to each other. Besides, I know how much Natasha suffers from having to give you up.”
“Then why did she?”
“For your own protection.”
“From who?”
“Please, Nicole. It’s a long story.” Henry ran a hand through his thick, graying hair. “May I come in? Hear me out for five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to say, then I’ll leave and you can pretend we never even met.”
I hesitated in the doorway. “It’s not my house.”
“But you’re staying here?”
“Briefly.”
Henry lifted his shoulders. With his hands tucked deep in the pockets of his denim jacket and his feet spread in a casual stance, he looked far from malicious. “I promise not to piss on the toilet seat or anything like that.”
My instincts warred. On one hand, I had been taken by surprise one too many times in the past several weeks. Letting my guard down now could be the biggest mistake I’d ever make. On the other hand, if Henry really did have a way to help, what good would it do to refuse him?
“Five minutes,” he promised again.
“I don’t trust you,” I said.
He seemed to take this statement as some kind of invitation inside. He nodded, stepped onto the porch, and said, “You’ll learn.”
25
As soon as Henry set foot inside, his eyes roved the modest house as if taking notes on the layout, decor, and possible exit routes. It was a calculating look, one that made me even more curious as to what Henry had to say for himself. He paused in the act of shaking off his denim jacket, his gaze locked on the living room. There, on the floral patterned sofa, my boyfriend, Wes, dozed, snoring fitfully through his mouth. His face was a portrait of bruises. Earlier that day, his nose had been broken, and if I knew my adversaries as well as I thought I did, he’d been tortured emotionally throughout the twelve hours in which they had kept him hostage. At the sight of him, finally relaxed and safe, my heart swelled in my chest.
Henry raised an eyebrow at Wes. “Rough day?”
“You have no idea.”
I beckoned Henry into the kitchen. As I warmed two mugs of water for tea in the microwave—the whistle of the kettle was sure to wake someone—he hung his jacket across the back of a chair and settled down at the kitchen table.
“First things first,” he said. “Whose house is this? Is the owner going to come down the stairs with a shotgun and demand evidence of my credentials?”
I leaned against the counter, watching the microwave clock count down so that I could catch it before it beeped, and asked, “You have credentials?”
“Believe it or not.”
“It’s my history professor’s house,” I answered. I wondered how much information to allow Henry. “Or his wife’s now, I guess. He was murdered.”
Henry nodded. If this information was jarring to him in any way, he didn’t show it. “George O’Connor.”
I squinted at him. “You know what? This might go faster if you tell me what you know. I agreed to five minutes. Start talking, Mr. Danvers.”
“Please, call me Henry.”
He smiled, waiting patiently for me to respond.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Henry.”
The microwave beeped. I had lost track of the minutes. Quickly, I wrenched open the door, hoping that the noise wouldn’t disturb Wes in the living room or O’Connor’s wife, Eileen, upstairs. I dropped a bag of chamomile tea in each mug then sat down at the table across from Henry, sliding one mug across to him.
“Thanks,” he said, warming his hands around the steaming cup. “For the sake of background information, I feel like I should tell you that I didn’t know about you until pretty recently.”
“How recently?”
“I found out that Natasha had a daughter about three years ago.”
“So not that recent. She never told you about me?”
Henry shook his head. “Never said one word.”
I thought I had distanced myself from the file in my brain that held the emotions concerning my mother, but now that it had been flung open, there was no denying the ache of resentment. Henry had done something that seemed impossible; he’d fallen in love and made a life with a dead woman. Meanwhile, I was being hunted by my mother’s old ghosts.
“I didn’t know about my mother until just now, so I guess that makes us even,” I replied, absentmindedly dunking the tea bag in and out of my mug.
Henry produced a wry smile. “I guess it does. Listen, Nicole. Before I start explaining, I need you to agree to one condition.”
“There’s always a condition, isn’t there? What is it?”
“Don’t ask me how I found out about any of this.”
I lifted an eyebrow, dubious. “How am I supposed to learn to trust you when you say something like that? Are you with the mafia or something? Is the Cosa Nostra going to bust in here and kick my ass? Because honestly, I’ve just about reached my limit.”
He chuckled deeply, reaching
