Reese was polite, and very, very firm. The landlord agreed to complete the necessary repairs within twenty-four hours. John told him that he'd be back, in person, to check.
Repczinski shook Reese's hand, and the daughter – small, pale, very blonde – gave him a cookie that she'd frosted herself, with only a little help from her mother.
Reese sauntered back down to his car, licking frosting off his fingers. He tapped his earpiece. "Finch?"
"Nicely done, Mr. Reese. All kneecaps left intact, I presume?"
"For the moment. If that A/C's not fixed by tomorrow that could change. Anything on deck?"
Finch hesitated. "I … would you mind joining me? I'm in the building across from the Coronet. Suite 480."
"Sure thing." Reese started the car. "What's up at the hotel? New Number?"
"No." There was a second pause. "It's nothing, really." His voice changed; Reese could tell he'd straightened up. "On second thought, Mr. Reese, you should go home and get some rest. I'm sure your leg must be bothering you, and we're almost certain to get another Number soon."
"Finch, what's going on?"
The third pause was even longer. "You really don't need to bother, Mr. Reese. It's just a … a personal matter. I shouldn't have mentioned it."
"I'll be there," Reese said firmly.
He expected Finch to keep pushing back. Instead, he answered in a rather subdued voice, "Perhaps we could get some dinner after. If there's time."
"Good. On my way." Reese clicked off the comm before Harold could change his mind again.
A personal matter, he mused as he ran a red light. Even now, Finch rarely invited him to share in personal matters. He was less secretive than he'd been in their early days, but he still wasn't outgoing or particularly inclusive.
He didn't want to meet Reese in the Coronet Hotel itself, but across the street from it. Interesting.
Finch had had lunch with what constituted his family the day before. This personal matter probably had something to do with Will Ingram. They hadn't officially been informed yet, but Reese assumed, as Finch did, that Ingram's wife Julie was pregnant with their first child. If there was a problem with the baby, Finch would have told him over the phone. On the other hand, if there was a problem with the marriage and Ingram had taken up residence at the hotel … that might be something Finch would ask John to help intervene with. Maybe.
If the couple was in danger again …
John shook his head impatiently. He could speculate all day. Or he could just get there.
He gunned the sedan through another red light.
Kozlow took his campers to Battery Park. While they took long panoramic shots of the Statue of Liberty, he walked behind them, suggesting improvements to their technique. "Watch the reflections," he called. "You'll get serious glare off all that water on a bright day like today."
He liked teaching kids, especially ones who were actually interested in the subject. During the school year he was stuck in a high school art room, teaching nobody anything except how to skate by with a passing grade. And if half of these rich kids had cameras that he could never afford on his salary, well, at least they were learning how to use them.
"Keep your elbows in," he called to Hailey, for the hundredth time.
Dylan hurried over to her. To them, Kozlow amended mentally, because Hailey and Helen had been inseparable since the first class. He was very glad of that. Hailey was scatter-brained and unfocused. Helen was the exact opposite, attentive and careful, and she kept track of her friend.
Kozlow's little brother paid a little too much attention to the two of them. While he watched, Dylan grabbed Hailey by the elbows from behind and pretended he was going to throw her over the railing. She squealed in laughter and he released her, but kept touching her arm as she took her next round of photos. Then he reached over and touched Helen's arm as well. Just reminding them to keep their elbows down, Matt was sure. Nothing improper. Nothing anyone would complain about. Just a little … too.
"Does anyone know where my phone went?" Hailey said loudly.
Kozlow shook his head and went to join the search.
Harold Finch waited by the window. He had a clear and unobstructed view of the street and the main entrance of the Coronet Hotel, but he was four floors up, too high for a casual glance to reveal him to anyone on the street below.
If she saw him now …
"That would be very bad," he said quietly. From long habit, he pulled his cuffs down and straightened his tie.
The door opened behind him and Reese came in. The man was pale with exhaustion and he limped noticeably, but his eyes said none of that mattered. "Mr. Reese."
"Finch." John gestured to the office. "Are we expanding the business?"
"Hardly. I've only rented this space – unofficially – for the evening. I needed the view."
Reese limped around the desk and joined him at the window. "Expecting someone?"
Up close his weariness was even clearer. "I shouldn't have asked you to come," Harold said quietly. He glanced at his watch. "This shouldn't take long."
John settled his weight on the windowsill to take the pressure off his leg, without comment.
It's better, Finch thought. It's better than watching alone. He felt more than a little foolish for having asked his friend to join him, but he was glad he'd come. "I do appreciate your being here."
"Do you want to tell me," Reese asked calmly, "or should I just wait for it?"
A white horse appeared at the end of the block. "There." Harold gestured. The horse pulled an open carriage. It turned down the block and made its way slowly to the hotel entrance. By the time it arrived, several dozen people had come out to the sidewalk to greet the occupants.
Grace Hendricks smiled and waved from the carriage, laughing at the absurdity of her princess-like arrival. Beside her, Gregg Everett also waved, more reservedly. Between them, his daughter beamed with excitement and flailed both arms at the waiting crowd.
Harold's breath caught in his chest. He waited for the pain to knife through him. John's hand landed on his shoulder, firm. Not alone. Even in this, he was not alone.
"They were married last Saturday, on the beach in Massachusetts," Finch said. He was surprised at how normal his voice sounded. "They had a reception there, followed by a brief honeymoon. Grace's friends insisted on throwing them a second reception here in the city."
"And these friends," Reese predicted wryly, "unexpectedly found an available space at the Coronet. Probably at a substantial discount."
Finch shrugged. "They did have to pay full price for the carriage, I'm afraid."
They watched as Everett climbed down from the carriage, then reached back to help his daughter and then his bride out. The child wore a simple white dress with a wide blue sash. It was pretty, but she was obviously comfortable and unconstrained. Grace's choice, Finch guessed. Grace herself wore a nice suit, pale yellow, a shade only a redhead could get away with.
Even from four floors up, she looked beautiful.
Everett held her hand as they walked into the hotel with their throng of well-wishers.
Finch became aware that even as the door closed behind them, he was waiting.
"The child?" Reese asked quietly.
"Elizabeth. She's nine."
The hand remained firm and warm on his shoulder. Not alone. Not even in this.
Waiting. Waiting.
Silence, unstrained. And waiting.
He was waiting for it to hurt, Harold realized. He was waiting for the reality to sink in. He was waiting for the rush of pain that this reality would certainly cause. Grace was gone, forever and irrevocably. He would never, ever have another chance to touch her face or look into her loving eyes or kiss her lips. Never. It should hurt. It had to hurt.
It did hurt, he realized. But it hurt in a low, dull, aching way. A nostalgic way.
The slicing agony he'd been expecting was not going to come. He'd already been through it.
He felt the warmth of John's hand soak into the habitual ache in his neck. It's like that, he thought suddenly. It was agonizing when I was first injured, but it's healed so much now. It aches. Some days it aches worse. And it's always with me. But it doesn't confine me anymore. I'm not helpless and immobile. Sometimes it's barely there at all. Grace is like that, too. Agonizing in the first days, but now … now just an ache from an old wound.
He took a deep breath.
His partner sensed the shift, as he always did, and his hand fell away.
"I do apologize, Mr. Reese." Finch adjusted his glasses, turned away from the window. "I … honestly expected this to be much more difficult."
"It's not?"
"It is, but … not like I anticipated." Finch shook his head. "I had planned to monitor – spy on – the wedding last week, but we were so busy with Numbers that the day passed before I remembered. So I thought today, seeing her in person …" He shook his head again, amazed and relieved. "Now I do feel quite foolish for having had you come down here."
Reese shrugged. "You promised me dinner."
"Dinner. Yes." Finch looked over his shoulder at the hotel again. There was still no dagger of pain. The ache swelled, but it was by no means unbearable. "I will always miss her," he said simply. "But I'm glad she's happy. And not alone." He looked back at Reese. And I am not alone, either, my friend. Perhaps that makes the difference. "Dinner. Anywhere you like."
"American Cut," Reese said immediately. "I'm feeling carnivorous."
"You do look as if a hearty portion of red meat would do you good," Finch agreed. They turned and limped together out of the office. "How does your leg feel?"
"Four."
"I'm sure you're not taking any pain medication."
"After dinner."
They went to Harold's car, which he'd parked out of sight of the hotel. "Sure you don't want to sneak over and watch the party?" John said.
Finch considered this suggestion seriously. It was tempting. But not overwhelmingly so. "I think it best that I don't." Reese looked at him for a long moment. "I assure you, Mr. Reese, I am quite alright."
John simply nodded.
As they walked into the restaurant, Reese said, "Do you think – is it possible that the Machine's been giving us so many Numbers to distract you?"
"From Grace?" Finch considered. "I suppose so," he answered slowly. "A few months ago I would have said no, emphatically, but now that it's autonomous … perhaps." He thought further while the hostess seated them. "Although, all the Number have been legitimate, to some degree."
"True."
"Still, it's a possibility. I suppose if that's the case, things will be quieter now that she's gone."
"I hope so." Reese slumped back and closed his eyes for a moment.
Finch reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a foil pack of ibuprofen. "Take these," he ordered.
John peered at him through narrowed eyes, then shrugged and swallowed the pills with a sip of water.
"I suppose I might attempt to adjust the threshold somewhat," Finch mused. He began sorting code in his head. It would be tricky. Much would depend on how cooperative the Machine was inclined to be, now that it was autonomous…
"Threshold?"
"So that it gave us only the most serious Numbers."
Reese shook his head. "Twelve hours from now, either Repczinski or his landlord might have been dead. I thought the point of the Numbers was that the Machine left the choices to humans."
Finch nodded thoughtfully. "Still. You have to admit that currently we're stretched very thin."
"Maybe we need to bring in some more help."
"Perhaps." Finch didn't like the idea, at all, but their options were rapidly dwindling. They were both exhausted. And the Numbers never stopped coming.
"I'll take a look around," Reese continued, overriding his hesitance. "If I find someone likely, we can talk about it."
The waitress came by. Reese ordered a bourbon, neat, and an assortment of appetizers. After an instant of hesitation, Finch asked bourbon as well, and a glass of water.
"What we really need," Finch mused, "is someone who can intervene before these situations get to be life-threatening. If Mr. Repczinski had been able to get assistance when he asked, he would have had no need to purchase a firearm."
Reese nodded, smiled at the waitress, and sipped his drink. "So what are you thinking? Some kind of privately-funded social services agency? Team Machine, minor league?"
He was only half kidding. "An agency with adequate staffing," Harold agreed. "One that wasn't overburdened and underfunded."
"Well, the funds aren't an issue, anyhow. Finding people that will actually help and not just pocket the money, that's a little trickier."
"Christine would know people," Finch said absently.
"Christine was one of those people," Reese answered.
"Is. She is one of those people."
John sipped his drink. "Just cats, still?"
"The kittens are growing," Finch answered morosely. There were six of them, three black and white, two yellow tigers, and one very pale yellow.
They were adorable, he supposed, if one were inclined to think such things about kittens.
He had still not tracked the geographical data from the photos, though he was still terribly tempted to do so. As he'd told Nathan a thousand times, any exploit was a total exploit. If he'd allowed himself that one small intrusion into her privacy, he doubted that he could have kept from allowing himself one more. Once he knew precisely where in Ireland she was, he would have let himself make sure that the neighborhood was relatively safe. That her hotel was up-to-date on its fire inspections. That the restaurant's food was adequate and sanitary. All in the name of her safety, of course.
He couldn't trust himself to stop if he let himself start.
They had a deal, he and Christine, and she had kept her part of it. He would not cheat on his end.
"She'll come back," Reese said.
"Of course she will." Unexpectedly, the same ache that he'd felt watching Grace welled in his chest. "Of course she will," he said again.
Reese watched him. His eyes were calm, bright. Much too discerning. Seeing too deeply into the things Finch tried to hide. Too much like hers. But John didn't comment. Instead, he changed the subject. "How was your lunch with your nephew?"
Harold sipped his drink, grateful. "Very good. Young Mrs. Ingram is, as expected, expecting."
"We all called that one. When's she due?"
"New Year's. Will is over the moon, of course."
"Julie's not?"
"She's been sick," Finch told him. "She's much better now, she says, but I gather she suffered with morning sickness all day every day for several weeks. And even now everything she eats gives her heartburn. It's put a bit of a damper on her enthusiasm."
"I can see where it would."
The appetizers came and they ordered entrees.
Mid-way through the meal, a cell phone buzzed at the next table and both men jumped. "Not mine," Finch said, relieved.
"It's like we have a newborn of our own," Reese said ruefully.
"Pardon?"
"Your Machine. We can never leave it unattended. When it wails we jump into action. It calls us day or night, even if we just attended to it an hour ago. We can never plan on getting a hot meal or a full night's sleep. It's like a newborn."
Finch scowled. "You know, Mr. Reese, I went to rather great lengths to keep from anthropomorphizing the Machine. And yet Miss Groves refers to it as a god, and you talk about it as our baby. It's really quite disconcerting."
Reese shrugged. "A rose by any other name, Finch."
"It's not a flower, either."
"Any word about her? Root?"
Finch shook his head. "I'm roughly ninety percent certain I know where she's being held. Beyond that – the system security on that location is very tight, and I'm frankly reluctant to attempt to access it, absent a credible threat of her escape."
"They're not going to let her escape, Finch. She's their most high-value captive."
"Even though she genuinely can't help them locate the Machine."
"They won't believe that," Reese answered. "Ever."
"So she'll be held there for the rest of her life." It was curious, Finch thought. He would normally have been saddened by the prospect of such a wasted life. But in the case of Miss Groves, it was actually a relief.
She had a brilliant mind and unlimited potential. But that mind was so twisted that she could not possibly be trusted in society.
The incalculable damage she had already done …
Three women, Finch thought. Grace, Christine and Root. Two good and one evil. Two now set on paths to futures that took and kept them away from him. One he was glad to be rid of. One he would always regret. And the third – the third's path was still uncertain.
The pain welled up again, unexpectedly sharp.
Christine was safe, he reminded himself. She had a mustached mother cat and her kittens to entertain her. She was working through her own pain, her own past. She was comfortable, if not happy.
She would come back to them. Or she wouldn't, and she would thrive somewhere in a new life, safely away from them and all the danger association with them would put her in. Either way, the lovely brilliant woman would go on. It was enough, that she would survive. It had to be enough.
"Eat, Finch," Reese said quietly. "Only your baby knows when we'll get another chance."
Finch scowled. But he picked up his fork. Reese was right, of course. It was only a matter of time.
They received four more Numbers over the next four days.
Then a heat wave hit the city, and the Numbers stopped abruptly.
The woman stopped in a shadow and leaned her back against the stone wall of the tall building. Even now, hours after sunset, it radiated the heat it had stored during the day. She could feel it through the soles of her shoes, too. And of course in the air, wrapped around her like damp beach towel half-dried on hot sand.
Most cities felt summer, of course. But New York City felt it in a unique way. Baked hard, splashed with little pools of cool from opened doors that warmed even before the doors latched. The nights that were never even remotely dark, but with deep shadows around every corner, a winding pathway of concealment. The smell of waste and humans and under it all, the sea. The traffic sounds that quieted but never went silent. And the voices. Always, somewhere, there were voices.
It had been a long time since she'd been in New York in the summer. A long time since she'd been there at all. She had felt like a foreigner since her return. Uncomfortable, unsettled. So much had changed. Everything had changed.
She had changed, most of all.
But tonight, in the first blast of summer heat, tonight she recognized her old city. And she felt it recognize her.
She took a long deep breath of smelly, stagnant air.
Yes.
The woman moved then, out from the shadow and into the next. She moved as steadily as she could. But it didn't come naturally any more. She had to think about it, had to study her next move, and her next. There had been a time when avoiding the light was second nature, when it took no conscious thought at all. The city was familiar, but she was not a part of it. She might never be again.
That was the deal she'd made when she'd left. The chance she'd taken.
She didn't have to look at her watch to know that she had just over an hour before she needed to head back. The children were safe, asleep in their beds, and their uncle was asleep on the couch downstairs. He wasn't their blood relative, but he was her best surviving friend in the world and she trusted him absolutely to protect them.
He was better at it than she was, actually, and no less devoted to their safety.
No one is coming for us, she reminded herself. No one knows we're here. No one cares. Our cover is secure. I've taken every possible precaution. This is okay. This is necessary.
Panic rose in her chest. She felt her heart pound. She wrapped her hand over the emerald and focused on finding the next shadow.
I have to do this for them. I have to get through this.
I will smother them if I don't.
The woman stopped again and pressed her back against a wall. She made herself feel the heat and the hardness through her shirt. She took long deep breaths of the half-fetid air. She listened to the voices all around her.
You know this city. She is hard and hot and smelly and loud. She has a pulse, a life of her own. This city took you in when you were young and dumb and all alone. This city took you in when you were older and broken and sick. This city let you go when you were in love and could not stay here.
Your children will know this city as you know her, and she will know them. She will take them in, as she took you in. This is their home, their birthright, as much as that vast old house by the sea. This city is the family they haven't met yet. They deserve to know her.
The woman smiled grimly in the dark. She hadn't always been so poetic. She's spent a lot of time in this city thinking things like get the hell out of my way and don't you people ever shut up, and sometimes, if you think I'm prey, come and get me. Let's go.
Happy years by the shore had softened her. Happy evenings curled in her husband's arms, listening to him read poetry and bedtime stories and classics. Happy afternoons lounging in the sun on the deck of their little sailboat, or dangling her bare feet off the end of the dock. Happy nights on the bleachers watching baseball or football or basketball, or in the comfortably cushioned chairs in the auditorium watching band concerts and plays. Happy mornings on the porch, with a lap blanket and a huge cup of coffee, watching the deer nibble on the lawn. Years with him beside her, with his hand in hers. Years when it didn't matter what was around them, so long as she could touch his hand …
Her hand was so tight around the emerald that it hurt.
New York had been his city, too.
Tears prickled at her eyes, and she brushed them away impatiently with her free hand. This is not about him. It is not about you. It is about the children, your children together. It is about you reconnecting to this place so that the children can someday live here, if they wish. It's about getting past your fear and your grief and giving them a chance to live outside your shadow.
She took another deep breath. She picked her next three moves in shadows. Then she straightened up, released her death-grip on the gem around her neck, and she moved.
