When It Was Time to Confess

The locksmith had just finished changing the back door when I came down the stairs with my suitcase. He set his tools on the porch and avoided my eyes. A man in a charcoal suit held the new keys and checked the lock twice. On the other side of the foyer, rain tapped at the tall windows of the Mercer house, the one my mother had filled with white roses and my father had once called impossible to lose. "Miss Mercer," the man in the suit said. "The bank's possession order is effective today." "I know what the order says." I gripped the handle of my suitcase. My hands were cold. I had been inside for three hours while the lawyers and movers worked around me, trying to decide which objects were personal and which belonged to the creditors. They had let me keep my clothes, a stack of books, and a framed photograph of my mother. They had taken the silver, the paintings, and the piano. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A message from my father, sent eleven minutes earlier. I'm handling it. Don't speak to anyone. The sentence was almost funny. Dad hadn't answered my calls since the bank froze the family accounts. He hadn't appeared at the emergency meeting or the courthouse hearing. Now he had sent me an instruction from wherever he was hiding. The suit held the keys out to the locksmith. "You'll need to leave the property." "I'm leaving." I stepped through the open doorway. Nate Cole stood at the foot of the porch, one hand in his coat pocket and the other holding a battered blue duffel. He was taller than I remembered, though that might have been because I hadn't seen him in three years. His hair was shorter, the line of his jaw rough with stubble. He looked from my suitcase to my face. "Claire." I had imagined seeing him again in a hundred ways. In none of them had I been standing in the rain with my life packed into one suitcase. "Are you here to make sure I don't steal the doorknobs?" "No." He took the suitcase from me. "I can carry it." "I know." He didn't give it back. The man in the suit cleared his throat. "The bank has no objection to Miss Mercer taking her personal property. Mr. Cole, you are not authorized to enter the house." "I wasn't planning to." Nate turned toward his truck. I followed because the alternative was standing on the porch until the bank's lawyer asked me to leave again. He opened the passenger door. "Get in." I looked at the empty street. "Where are you taking me?" "My house." The offer landed harder than the rain. "You don't have to do that." "I know." "I can find a hotel." "With what money?" I stiffened. "That's not your problem." "It became my problem when I heard you were alone here." He said it without warmth, but he had driven across town in bad weather and brought a bag big enough for someone staying overnight. I climbed into the truck. Nate placed my suitcase in the back, then shut the door. He walked around to the driver's side. The truck smelled like wet canvas and coffee. I rested my framed photograph on my knees and watched him start the engine. "Where's my father?" I asked. "I don't know." "You were his security chief for six years." "I was your security detail." "Is there a difference?" "There was when he started asking me to do things I couldn't do." I looked at him. "What things?" He shifted into gear. "We'll talk when you're warm." He drove us through Bellwether Bay, past the shuttered Mercer hotels and the marina where my father's yacht sat behind a chain. The town was still familiar, but the signs were changing. The blue Mercer Crest logos were gone from two buildings already. At the flagship hotel, a crew was taking down the brass letters above the entrance. I watched them lower the M. "Do you know what happened?" I asked. "I know what the public filings say." "Which is?" "That Mercer Hospitality missed its loan payments. The creditors filed for an emergency sale. Your father resigned as chair. The company is in receivership." "I know the filings." "Then you know more than I do." "Not about the accounts. I was never allowed near them." Nate glanced at me, then returned his eyes to the road. "You worked in operations." "I managed guest experience and staffing across the three hotels. I didn't sign anything." "Did you?" The question was quiet. I turned toward him. "No." He didn't apologize for asking. I was glad he didn't. It was the kind of question people had been avoiding, which made me suspect they all wanted an answer. We arrived at a narrow gray house on the edge of town. Nate carried my suitcase to the small spare room and left the duffel beside the door. "The bathroom's across the hall," he said. "The heater makes a sound like a dying lawn mower, but it works." "Thank you." He turned as if to leave. "Wait." The words slipped out. "Why are you doing this?" He looked at me for a long moment. His face gave me nothing I could name. "Because it's raining," he said. "And you need somewhere to sleep." Then he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his coat and taped it to the inside of my bedroom door. "What's that?" "Rules." "Of course it is." "Read them before you decide to hate me." I looked down at the paper. It had five lines, written in his tidy block letters. Lock the doors. Tell me if anyone contacts you. Don't sign anything without reading it. No wandering off alone after dark. No discussing work while I'm on the clock. I looked up. "Are you still working?" "No." "Then the last rule doesn't apply." "It applies if I say it does." I studied him. "You can't give me orders anymore." "I know." He left the room before I could ask why the paper made it feel as if he could.