“Too bad for you, Omar. You couldn’t get to St. Vincent via normal channels—you said so yourself that day in your office. So you recruited me. Why? Because you knew I’d be too proud to question the assignment. Because any one of your field personnel would have smelled the rat that I missed. This was a personal vendetta—don’t even bother to deny it. I’ve seen it all the way through and I know. You set Sydny up as bait—you didn’t care if she lived or died.”

“Her death was an unfortunate—” He sighed. “She was collateral damage.”

“Oh, please.” Julie shot him a poisonous look before she left the room.

“Wait,” Hemingway said. “Where are you going?”

There was no response. He did not go after her, nor did he call out again. Instead, he turned back to Orrin. “Jesus, what a mess,” he said. “But not to worry. I’ve called for our cleaning service. God knows the apartment needs it.”

Chapter 46

46

“I’m so sorry, Whit,” Charlie said. “I had no idea. You never even mentioned your family.”

“Now you know why.”

She nodded. “So it was this man Preach who gave you the tattoo?”

Whitman nodded. “I stayed with him far longer than Luther St. Vincent, a member of the Alchemists, would have wanted me to. Preach saw in me a kindred spirit. Even more, he realized that I possessed something he had thought only he had.”

“What was that?”

“A doorway to … somewhere else.”

Charlie frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Join the club.”

“Wait a minute. Are you talking about what you did to Flix? How you saved him?”

Whitman nodded. “That’s part of it, but only a part.”

Charlie swallowed. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“That’s precisely why I never told you.” He leaned over, kissed her cheek. “I knew I had already frightened you enough.”

“I don’t frighten easily.” She have him a tentative smile. “Only by things I see that defy explanation.”

“You don’t ever want to meet Preach then.” Whitman’s gaze turned inward, as memories continued to come to the fore. “Everyone was frightened of Preach. He never said much, but then he didn’t have to. People came to him for help, and he gave it.”

“What kind of help?”