Part 2: “Nora,” she said. “Nora Bennett.”
Of course.
Bennett.
Tristan kept his voice flat. Not soft. Children like this could hear lies inside softness.
“Nora, I need the truth. All of it.”
She folded her hands so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“I followed you,” she said.
The room changed shape around them.
“After Dad died, we had nowhere to go. The motel was going to put our stuff outside. Then a man came. He said his name was Mr. Doyle. He said he knew our dad from work. He said Eli’s medicine was expensive, and he could help if I did little jobs.”
“What jobs?”
“Watching a man.”
“What man?”
Her eyes flicked up to his face, then down again.
“A tall man in a long black coat. He left a building on Fifty-Second Street at eight every morning. He drank coffee from a blue paper cup. Got into a black car with tinted windows. I wrote down where he went.”
Tristan did not move.
“I didn’t know it was you,” Nora whispered. “Mr. Doyle called you him. He said I was helping people.”
“And then?”
