“You know, Marissa, you’ve always had options.” Grodescu had become even more relaxed during the interlude. “We could always . . .”
A rustle, then a derisive huff.
“You won’t use that,” Grodescu said confidently.
“Won’t I? Open the safe.”
“I don’t think so.”
A gunshot cracked through the room. The sound wasn’t deafening like the Grodescus might have expected; that was the silencer doing its work.
“I won’t miss again. Open the safe.”
Even with his ear pressed against the door, Tinseng couldn’t hear what happened next.
The next audible sound was Lucas Grodescu saying, “There. It’s open. Your sister’s file is here, you can get it yourself. Are you satisfied?”
“No. Where are the papers the men on the ship were after?”
“Why do you care about them? Did they put you up to this?”
Marissa’s laugh splintered like lightning across a red sky. “Where are they, Lucas?”
“Why waste your time on them? You have what you want. If you go now, you might even get away.”
“Get away? From what? There is no one for miles. The cook is home; Marie is with her mother. You came without protection. You suspect everyone, everyone, but never me. You still think of me as the girl I was when you took me. But I’ve watched you, learned from you. You have lived mercilessly, and I see no reason to show you any. Where is their file?”
“In the fucking safe—where else do you think it would be?”
“Good.”
“Now—”
Grodescu’s bargaining cut off with a crack. One muffled shot, then another. A burst of them; Tinseng counted up to five. Then the clip was empty, and the silence after confirmed no struggle.
Slowly, Tinseng opened the door. Grodescu lay on the floor with the kind of bloodstain that meant only one thing. Assured of their safety, Tinseng led them both out. He passed Marissa on his way to the safe, who still had the empty gun pointed at her husband. He considered saying something, but what was there to say? He moved around her and knelt down in front of the safe; finding the files was the only thing he could do to bring Marissa and Jinzhao comfort.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jinzhao check Grodescu’s pulse. Jinzhao looked up at Marissa and confirmed, “Dead.”
Marissa made a small, broken sound. Jinzhao went to her, gently wrapping his hand around the gun and pulling it away. Marissa let it go. They both looked down at the man who had threatened them. Their faces held a very similar expression. Tinseng recognized it from the mirror.
Tinseng turned his back on the scene. He focused on rooting through files, pulling at random, then throwing them on the floor when they weren’t the ones he wanted. Halfway through, he paused, then tossed one across the desk.
“Jinzhao.” The file slid over to Jinzhao on the smooth mahogany. He flicked the cover open to scan the contents, then held it out to Marissa.
“Is this your sister’s file?” Jinzhao asked Marissa.
“Yes. Yes.” Her voice cracked open, and for the first time Tinseng heard something besides grim resolution. “Thank you.”
“No. We owe you everything. We would not be here without you,” Jinzhao said. He took a breath to say more, but Tinseng interrupted, “Jinzhao.”
It was real this time. He stood up and handed Jinzhao a slim file with familiar papers inside—the originals, taken from Li Xifeng’s desk in Bern. Jinzhao stared down at the folder a long moment, then looked up helplessly at Tinseng. Tinseng smiled, then grinned, then—fuck it—started to laugh. The relief was so total, such a riptide, that his knees wobbled and he stumbled into Jinzhao’s arms. Jinzhao buried his head in Tinseng’s shoulder and shook. No one heard his mourning; only the silent heaving gave him away, a small boat on an infinite maelstrom.
But the storm passed quickly and soon they pulled apart, finding each other’s eyes in perfect synchronicity. That’s enough of that, Jinzhao’s look said; time to work.
Tinseng nodded, then clapped his hands together. “We’ll take the rest of it,” he declared as he looked around. “Take all the files in the safe and burn them off-site,” he said to Marissa. “Once we leave, you’ll call the police. You came home and found him dead, you have no idea who could have done this, and so on. Don’t play coy about his business; they know, you know, they know you know. Putting them on that scent is your strongest move. It’ll be easy to frame it as robbery—because that’s what it was. Robbery, revenge. Both. Exactly what happened, only with someone else holding the gun.”
The longer Tinseng wove the story, the more confident he felt. But Marissa was shaking her head.
“I cannot stay.”
“Marissa.” Tinseng frowned. “It’d be just a few weeks. Close up the estate, talk to the lawyers—”
“You do not understand. I . . . I will not be convincing. It took everything not to scream at every moment. To look at him, speak about him without disgust. Now that he is gone, I . . .”
She had started backing up as she spoke, and Tinseng knew he was losing her.
“Everyone knew what he was,” he tried to tell her. “The police won’t expect you to be weeping in mourning clothes. Hell, you can be cold as—”
“The police won’t be on my side.”
“Just a few days, then. Marissa,” he said with the voice he had used on rabbity assets. This was starting to fall apart. “If you leave in the middle of the night, they’ll suspect you.”
“Maybe I never came home.”
“Do you even have a place to go?”
Marissa shook her head. “I did not think I would get this far. Even with—I could not believe it.”
