“Who gave you permission to look like that?” Damian Cross’s voice stopped me three steps inside his penthouse. In two years, I had watched Boston’s most feared mafia boss hear about shootings, raids, betrayals, and missing shipments without blinking. Yet somehow, one crimson dress had left him speechless.
“No.”
“No.”
The waiter’s eyes flicked toward me.
“You’re certain?”
“I am.”
For one strange second, I had the sense that the question had been meant for me.
Before I could respond, Damian took my hand from his sleeve.
Not roughly.
He simply folded my fingers into his palm and lowered our joined hands between us.
“Walk with me,” he said.
“To where?”
“Anywhere that isn’t here.”
The waiter moved on.
Damian guided me through the ballroom without hurrying. Anyone watching would have thought we were simply escaping the noise for a quieter conversation.
Only when we entered a wide hallway lined with paintings of Boston Harbor did he release my hand.
“What did you see?”
“The tattoo.”
“What tattoo?”
“Under his cuff. A black compass with a broken north point.”
Damian’s expression changed.
Barely.
But I had spent two years watching faces in exam rooms.
I knew what barely looked like.
“You know it,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I treated him six months ago.”
“Where?”
“Crosswell.”
Damian stared toward the ballroom doors.
“What name?”
“He gave me Rafael Cruz.”
“That his real name?”
“I have no idea. Most of your patients don’t bring passports when they arrive at two in the morning.”
His gaze returned to me.
“They aren’t my patients.”
“They are treated in your clinic.”
“Crosswell is not supposed to belong to any organization.”
I nearly laughed.
“Mr. Cross, I have stitched up men who refused to tell me which direction the bullet came from because apparently even geography is confidential.”
His mouth twitched.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know. That’s why I’m making jokes.”
He studied me for another moment.
Then his attention dropped.
“To your hand.”
“What?”
My fingers were closed.
I hadn’t noticed.
I opened them.
A small square of cream paper rested against my palm.
I stared at it.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
Damian’s eyes hardened with concentration.
“The waiter.”
I remembered Damian lowering my hand after I grabbed his sleeve.
No.
Before that.
The waiter had adjusted his tray when he stopped.
His napkin had brushed my wrist.
I unfolded the paper.
There were seven words written in neat blue ink.
Ask your mother about Saint Agnes. October 2008.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Damian said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
He had gone too still again.
I looked up.
“You know what this means.”
“No.”
It came too quickly.
I folded the note.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’ve been told the opposite.”
“Then apparently everyone around you is afraid to critique you honestly.”
That almost earned me another smile.
Almost.
Instead he asked, “Is your mother in Boston?”
“Yes.”
“Does she live alone?”
I immediately stiffened.
Damian noticed.
“I’m asking because someone just delivered you a message concerning her.”
“My mother is not part of this.”
“I hope not.”
“She teaches piano to children and spends Sunday afternoons arguing with supermarket coupons.”
“I’m not accusing her of anything.”
“Then don’t talk about her like she needs surveillance.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were about to.”
He exhaled slowly.
“You’re right.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“You’re right.”
“I heard you. I’m just wondering if someone else did.”
This time the corner of his mouth moved.
Then his face became serious again.
“Call her.”
“Now?”
“Ask whether she’s home.”
I hesitated.
The note felt heavier than paper had any right to feel.
Finally, I pulled out my phone.
My mother answered on the third ring.
“Clara?”
I closed my eyes briefly.
Nothing in the world sounded more ordinary than my mother saying my name.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes.”
Another lie.
Apparently Damian wasn’t the only one.
“I just wanted to check on you.”
“At nine-thirty on a Thursday?”
“I can check on my mother at nine-thirty on a Thursday.”
“You can. You simply never do.”
Across from me, Damian raised one eyebrow.
I turned away from him.
“Are you home?”
“Of course I’m home. I have three students tomorrow morning, and Mrs. Chen’s daughter still refuses to believe middle C exists.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Is Ben there?”
“Your brother is eating the lasagna he claimed he wasn’t hungry for.”
From somewhere in the background, my younger brother shouted, “I can hear you!”
Mom ignored him.
“Where are you?”
“At a charity event.”
A pause.
“What kind of charity event requires you to sound as though you’re hiding in a closet?”
I glanced at the hallway.
“An expensive one.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It’s fine. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Clara.”
Something in her voice made me stop.
“Yes?”
“You’re not at the Harbor Crown, are you?”
My heart seemed to miss one beat.
Slowly, I turned back toward Damian.
He was watching my face.
“Why would you ask that?”
Silence.
Then my mother said, “I saw something online about the Cross Foundation gala.”
I knew my mother.
She used Facebook to watch videos of neighborhood dogs and complain about recipes that called for too much butter.
She did not follow foundation galas.
“Mom.”
“I should let you go.”
“Have you ever heard of Saint Agnes?”
Nothing.
Not even breathing.
“Mom?”
Her voice, when it came, was quieter.
“Come home tomorrow.”
“What happened in October 2008?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because some things deserve to be explained while looking at the person you kept them from.”
My fingers went cold.
“Kept what from me?”
“Tomorrow, Clara.”
Then she said goodnight and hung up.
I kept the phone against my ear several seconds longer.
Damian waited.
He didn’t ask what she had said.
He didn’t have to.
“My mother knows,” I whispered.
“So do you,” I said, looking at him.
“I know Saint Agnes.”
“What is it?”
“Was.”
He looked toward the windows at the end of the corridor.
“Saint Agnes Hospital closed almost fifteen years ago.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
“Damian.”
It was the first time I had ever used his first name.
His eyes came back to mine.
Something unreadable passed through them.
“Saint Agnes,” he said carefully, “was where my mother spent the last months of her life.”
I stared at him.
I knew almost nothing about Damian Cross’s mother.
Everyone knew about his father.
Victor Cross had built an empire from warehouses, shipping contracts, real estate, and businesses reporters described with cautious phrases like complex ownership structures.
His wife appeared in only a handful of photographs.
Catherine Cross.
Elegant.
Quiet.
Dead before Damian was twenty-five.
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said that before.”
“And it was true before.”
“Is it true now?”
His jaw shifted.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s what I have.”
Before I could press him further, a familiar voice floated down the hallway.
“Damian.”
A woman in a midnight-blue gown approached us.
Sophia Cross.
I had seen her twice at the clinic and several times in newspapers. Damian’s younger sister looked enough like him that no one could mistake their relationship, though where Damian seemed carved from restraint, Sophia moved through the world with warmth.
She kissed her brother’s cheek.
“You vanished in the middle of the foundation chairman’s speech.”
“I heard the rehearsal.”
“That makes one of us.”
Her attention moved to me.
Recognition lit her face.
“Clara Bennett.”
I blinked.
“You remember me?”
“You found me crackers after I nearly fainted during a blood draw.”
“You hadn’t eaten all day.”
“And you informed me that coffee was not breakfast with such conviction that I reconsidered several life choices.”
Damian looked between us.
“You know each other.”
Sophia smiled.
“Some of us occasionally visit the building we put our family name on.”
Then she noticed our expressions.
“What happened?”
Damian held out his hand.
I gave him the note.
Sophia read it.
Her smile disappeared.
“Where did you get this?”
“A waiter gave it to me.”
“What waiter?”
“Rafael Cruz,” I said.
Sophia’s eyes lifted sharply.
Damian noticed.
“You know him.”
She folded the note.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Sophia looked toward the ballroom.
Then back at her brother.
“Not here.”
Ten minutes later, the three of us were in a private sitting room on the hotel’s mezzanine.
Sophia stood beside the fireplace.
Damian remained near the door.
I sat because suddenly I wasn’t sure my knees trusted me.
Sophia twisted one of her rings.
“Rafael works for the Mercer organization.”
“I know,” Damian said.
“He also works for me.”
