There is only one thing on this earth that could stop me in my tracks and that is the sight of the doors sliding open.
I hear laughter. Talking. A whiff of cigar smoke slips from the room and rises up the stairs.
I’m staring through the haze of it when a man steps into the foyer. He is tall and broad shouldered, his dark hair closely cropped. He could be anyone. Through the cigar smoke, he is simply Generic Man Number Three. And perhaps I would just keep running were it not for the way he moves, a series of efficient, fluid steps, easy perpetual motion inside a well-tuned body. The kind of body that has been prepared and honed and trained.
From my place halfway down the stairs, I’m shrouded in shadows. But I can see the man. I can hear laughter. Some more men join him in the foyer. They are slapping backs and shaking hands.
“I’ll see you next week at your place, Pierre!” Grandpa calls to one man, who laughs and speaks in heavily accented English.
“And I expect you to bring my money so that I can win it back.”
Through the sitting room’s doors I see a table covered with brightly colored plastic chips and playing cards. Poker night. My grandfather has been hosting poker night.
Ambassadors fill the foyer. I recognize the prime minister and several of the men I saw at the palace.
The G-20 summit is nothing compared to the power that has been assembled around my grandfather’s poker table. The men say their good-byes, their breath no doubt smelling like cigars and Grandpa’s good Tennessee whiskey.
There are at least a dozen men, but no women. It’s like peeking behind the curtain of some ancient, all-powerful boys’ club. There is so much testosterone swirling in the air that for a second I lose sight of the broad-shouldered man.
I move a little closer, stand on my tiptoes, try to see better.
The prime minister moves toward the door, raises his hand in a wave good-bye. “Until next week, my friend,” he tells my grandfather.
Someone opens the door.
The prime minister starts to leave.
But not before the man holding the door for him turns back to my grandfather, offers a nod of his head.
The light from the porch flashes across his face, and I can see the dark, soulless eyes, the high cheekbones. And the scar that runs from his eyebrow to his jaw.
“Grace.” Ms. Chancellor’s hand is on my arm. I realize, faintly, that I’m sliding, trying to sit on the cold stairs. My grandfather and many of his guests are still in the foyer, and I know we cannot have a scene. I cannot cause an incident. Now would be an inopportune time for a distraught teenager to yell “Murderer!” and go running down the stairs.
I know what she’s thinking. But she doesn’t have to worry about that. I’m too busy shaking.
“Grandpa knows him.”
I look up at Ms. Chancellor. She must see the betrayal in my eyes — the hurt as I say it again. “Grandpa knows him!”
“Come, Grace. Let’s wait for your grandfather upstairs.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Grace, I know you must have questions …”
Grandpa doesn’t even say hello when he reaches his office. He doesn’t ask what I was doing out until midnight, or who I was with — none of the typical questions an adult authority figure is supposed to ask. He’s already been briefed by Ms. Chancellor. He is ready for this fight.
Which is a good thing because I’m already up and shouting, “You know him?”
“Now, Gracie …” Grandpa starts slowly. His tie is loose and the top button of his shirt is undone. When he walks to the small rolling tray by the window and pours himself a drink, I can tell it isn’t his first of the night. The way things are going, it almost certainly won’t be his last.
“I told you what I saw. I came to you and you know him. You knew him all along and you told me I was seeing things!”
“No.” Grandpa’s voice is sharp. He’s not doing the folksy Southern-gentleman act anymore. This is the man who negotiated the Treaty of Caspia. This is the man who championed the development of the EU. This is why the president and the prime minister and a half dozen other world leaders call him their friend.
I’m supposed to be intimidated. But I’m not. I’m disgusted.
“I told you, Grace Olivia, that you did not see the man who killed your mother. And you didn’t.”
“Who is he?” I demand.
Grandpa takes a slow sip of his whiskey. When he speaks again, his accent is stronger than I have ever heard it.
“He is a man I’ve known for years. He’s a friend.”
“Who is he?” I shout.
Grandpa’s voice remains soft. “His name is Dominic Novak. He’s the head of security for the prime minister. He is a decorated war hero and a key advisor to one of the most powerful men in Europe. He is trusted and respected and … He’s just a man with a scar, Grace. It doesn’t make him evil.”
“I know not all people with scars are evil,” I snap. “I’m not living in a cartoon. But I also know —”
“You know what?” Exasperated, Grandpa throws open one of his desk drawers and pulls out a file. “Tell me what you know, Grace. Because I remember when you just knew you saw your mother’s murderer two years ago in Santa Fe.” He pulls a photograph from the file — a face I thought I’d never see again.
“Or the man in the airport in Chicago.” He pulls out another picture. And then another. And another. “This one was a corporal at Fort Meade, wasn’t he?” My grandfather keeps pulling photographs out of the file folder, dropping them onto the desk. One scarred man after another. “And let’s not forget the priest in St. Louis. You were positive it was him. Even after we found out he’d been in South America when your mother was killed. Even then you shouted and insisted and —”
“Okay!” I yell. “Enough!”
“You said these men killed your mother, didn’t you, Grace?” Grandpa asks, and I stand silent. “Didn’t you?”
I stop shaking and look him in the eye.
“I’m right this time. I saw him.”
“Well, let me tell you what I see.”
He takes a step toward me, gestures with the hand that holds the glass. Brown liquid sloshes over the side and stains his expensive rug, but my grandfather doesn’t notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.