Page 153 of Never Alone
"You are saying yes."
"Yes."
She nodded. Once.
The room held quiet around the word.
I called Nicholas from Miranda's office at five-fifteen.
The phone was a burner Wilson had handed me ten minutes earlier. I held it a moment before I dialed. My hand was steady. I hadn't expected my hand to be steady.
He picked up on the second ring.
"Natalie."
He still called me Natalie. He hadn't asked which name to use.
"Hello, Nicholas." I held the phone. I held my face. I did the thing I had been doing all afternoon, which was being the version of myself he would believe.
"I've been thinking."
He waited. The wait was patient. It was the patience of a man who had been waiting longer than I had known.
"About a lot of things. About—what I did. About leaving. About the case. I've been?—"
I stopped. I let my breath go small.
"I'm not okay, Nicholas."
He was quiet. I could hear him breathing. I could hear something underneath the breathing. The small pleased sound of a man receiving a thing he had been waiting eight months for.
"Can we talk? Just—talk. Somewhere quiet. I just need to?—"
"Of course, Natalie."
Hisof coursehad not changed in ten years. It came easily. It came like he had been waiting at the door for someone to knock.
"Tonight?"
"Tonight. Where?"
"Somewhere public. I just—I'm not—I need?—"
"Of course. The bar at the Hotel Sterling. Eight o'clock. I'll be there."
He had picked the place. He had picked the time. He was already running the night.
"Okay."
"Natalie. I'm glad you called."
I made my mouth find the next words. The words that would land him.
"I know."
I hung up.
I held the phone a beat longer than I needed to. The line had gone. He was no longer in the room with me. My body was slower to know it.
