Then there is her mother, Kate. She holds Bailey in nearly every photograph displayed: Bailey and Kate eating ice cream; Bailey and Kate cuddling on a park bench. I focus on one of Bailey at a few days old, in a little blue beanie. Kate lies in bed with her, her lips to Bailey’s lips, her forehead against her forehead. It just about breaks my heart. And I assume that is why Nicholas keeps it in his view—why he keeps all of them in view—so every day they will just about break his.
This is the thing about good and evil. They aren’t so far apart—and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.
Ned remains in the hallway. Nicholas nods in his direction, and he closes the door. The thick, oak door. The bodyguard is in the hallway, the dogs in the hallway.
And the two of us are inside the office, alone.
Nicholas walks over to the bar and pours us each a drink. Then he hands mine over and takes a seat behind his desk, leaving me the chair in front of it—a deep, leather chair with gold etchings.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he says.
I sit down with my drink in my hand. But I’m not happy about having my back to the door. I have the thought, for a second, that it isn’t impossible someone could walk in and shoot me. One of the bodyguards could surprise me, the dogs could spring to action. Charlie himself could storm in. Maybe I have misunderstood what Owen put in his will. Maybe in this attempt to get Bailey and Owen out of what I have gotten them deeper into, I have left myself alone in the lion’s den. A sacrifice. In the name of Kate. Or Owen. Or Bailey.
I remind myself that’s okay. If I do what I came here to do, I’ll accept that.
I put my drink down. And my eyes travel back to the photographs of baby Bailey. I notice one of her in a party dress, a bow wrapped around her head.
It provides me some comfort, which Nicholas seems to notice. He picks it up and hands it to me.
“That was Kristin’s second birthday. She was already talking in full sentences. It was amazing. I took her to the park, maybe the week after that, and we ran into her pediatrician. He asked her how she was doing and she gave him a two-paragraph answer,” he says. “He couldn’t believe it.”
I hold the photograph in my hands. Bailey stares back at me, those curls a prelude to her whole personality.
“I believe it,” I say.
Nicholas clears his throat. “I take it she’s still like that?”
“No,” I say. “Monosyllables are more her speed these days, at least when it comes to me. But, in general, yes. In general, she is a star.”
I look up and see Nicholas’s face. He looks angry. I’m not sure why. Is he mad that I have done something to make Bailey not like me the way I wish she would? Or is he mad he has never been given the chance himself?
I hand him back his photograph. He places it back on his desk, moving it obsessively to the place where it was before, keeping each piece of her that he has exactly where he can find it. It feels like a bit of magical thinking, like if he holds on to her just so, that will help him find her again.
“So, Hannah, what can I do for you, exactly?”
“Well, I am hoping we can come to an agreement, Mr. Bell.”
“Nicholas, please,” he says.
“Nicholas,” I say.
“And no.”
I take a breath, moving forward in my seat. “You didn’t even hear what I have to say yet.”
“What I mean is no, that’s not why you’re here, to come to an agreement,” he says. “We both know that. You’re here in the hopes that I’m not who everyone is telling you I am.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “I’m not interested in who was right or who was wrong here.”
“That’s good,” he says, “because I don’t think you’d like the real answer. People don’t tend to work that way. We have our opinion and we filter information into a paradigm that supports it.”
“Not a big believer that people can change their minds?” I say.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Not usually, but you’re a lawyer,” I say. “Isn’t convincing people a large part of the job?”
He smiles. “I think that you’re confusing me with a prosecutor,” he says. “A defense attorney, at least a good defense attorney, never tries to convince anyone of anything. We do the opposite. We remind everyone you can’t know anything for sure.”
Nicholas reaches for the brown box on his desk, a smoke box. He opens the lid and takes out a cigarette.
“I won’t ask if you want one. Disgusting habit, I know. But I started smoking when I was a teenager, there wasn’t much else to do in the town I came from. And I started smoking again in prison, same issue,” he says. “Haven’t been able to kick it since. When my wife was still with us, I’d try. Got those nicotine patches. Have you seen those? They help if you have the discipline, but I don’t pretend to anymore. Not since I lost my wife… What’s the point? Charlie gives me grief about it, but there isn’t much he can do. I figure I’m an old man. Something else will get me first.”
He puts the cigarette to his mouth, silver lighter in hand.
“I’d like to tell you a little story, if you’ll indulge me,” he says. “Have you heard of Harris Gray?”
“I don’t think so,” I say.
He lights up, takes a long inhale.
“No, of course
