“You deserve a proper send-off,” Sebastian said to the empty room. “I wish I could give you one. I wish I could do a lot of things differently.”

Sebastian rubbed at his face, not knowing what to say but knowing he should say something. He wished Ava were sitting next to him right now. Ava had known Frank. If she were here, she would know what to say, tell him how he should handle this moment.

But she wasn’t here. No one was. He was alone—weren’t we all, in the end?—and he had to handle it himself and he didn’t have the faintest idea what he should say, because, really, what could he say? Frank was dead. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, and there was nothing he could do to change it. How did that prayer go, again? Grant me the serenity, God, to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can, and give me the wisdom to know the difference. A lot of truth in those words, sure, but that’s all they were: just words. And words were meaningless.

I’m sorry, he thought. Start with that.

“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, what I’ve put you through. Reason you’re dead is probably because of me. No, not probably. I caused it.” It was true. Frank had wanted to take a subtler, more cautious approach to dealing with Anton’s disloyalty—possibly to use Anton to lure in Paul. Sebastian didn’t want any part of it. He was sick of waiting, and his anger had, once again, blinded him.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said again. “I wish I could give you something more. But that’s all I’ve got. That’s all any of us get in this life.”

Sebastian got to his feet and pushed the gurney to the refrigerator, holding back the tears that wanted to come. He would grieve properly later, after this matter with Paul was put to bed. First, business. Frank, he knew, would understand—would be proud of him for forging ahead.

CHAPTER 30

ELLIE USUALLY TOOK for granted the way her memory worked, the speed and ease with which she could recall even the minutest details.

Ellie could recall, in clear, vivid detail, everything that had gone down at the house, but, incredibly, she had no memory, even now, of being shot. But she had been shot. The last thing she remembered with any clarity was being in the car and driving away and Sebastian on the phone, yelling to someone about how shit had turned sideways, that he was on his way to the checkpoint and to make sure the doctor was ready, because he was bringing in someone who’d been shot. Sebastian, she assumed, had been referring to her. She remembered feeling light-headed, sure she was going to pass out and die.

And now here she was, alive, lying in a bed, her arm tucked in a medical sling and an IV taped to the back of her hand. The room she found herself in was small and boxy and had bare white walls and soft lighting and a dull gray linoleum floor and a white door that looked thick and as impenetrable as steel, like the door of a prison cell. A fish-eye camera looked down at her from the corner of the ceiling near the door, and directly across from the foot of her bed was a wall of one-way glass, like the kind used in police interrogation rooms. She wasn’t bound or gagged but her clothes were gone, replaced by gray sweats.