Chapter 7 - The Paper Unfolded
Sullivan looked down at the scrap of paper. Slowly, deliberately, he folded it in half. Then in half again.
He reached into his vest pocket, produced a silver lighter, flicked the wheel, and held the flame to the corner of the paper.
Wynn gasped.
Sullivan held the paper until the fire ate the words—ate the ink, ate the jagged strokes of the pen—until only a glowing triangle of ash remained between his fingertips. He dropped the ember into the empty tin cup on the crate and watched it turn to gray dust.
“Corcoran is dead,” Sullivan said calmly. “I shot him in his office four hours ago.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
“He didn't give you those papers to help you, Wynn,” Sullivan said, looking into her eyes. “He gave them to you because Moretti paid him fifty thousand dollars to scatter this family. Moretti knew that if he came at me with guns, I would kill him. But he knew that if he took you away from me—if he made you disappear—I would lose my mind searching for you and leave my flank open.”
He reached out and smoothed her hair back from her forehead, noticing Posy’s plastic daisy clip pinned above her ear. His fingers lingered on the cheap plastic flower for a long moment.
“I’ve known about the adoption since I was sixteen,” Sullivan said quietly.
Wynn’s breath hitched. “What?”
“Marcus told me before he sent me to military school,” Sullivan said, his voice dropping into a register of profound, immovable certainty. “He sat me down in the library, showed me the registry, and told me that the day he brought you home, my mother placed you in my arms and told me you were my responsibility. He asked me if it changed anything.”
Sullivan leaned closer, pressing his forehead against Wynn’s.
“I told him that if anyone ever spoke that truth out loud, I would cut their tongue out. You are my sister. You were my sister when you had measles at seven. You were my sister when you wrecked my car at fourteen. You are a Vane because I say you are a Vane, and no piece of paper from a dead man’s safe will ever change that.”
Wynn broke. She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into his shoulder, sobbing with the deep, cleansing agony of someone who had returned from the dead.
Sullivan held her against his chest, his eyes closing tightly as he rocked her back and forth on the edge of the cheap cot.
May you like
Standing by the counter, Hollis turned her back to give them whatever privacy forty square feet of linoleum could offer. She picked up the kettle, wiped the rim with a rag, and let out a long, quiet breath that she felt she had been holding since two o’clock that morning.
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