Chapter 19 — The Flame

I walked to the desk.

I picked up the sealed trust document, the one bound with my father’s red wax signet, and I held it over the warm amber flame of the desk lamp.

Juliet made a small sound.

“Bennett, no — ”

I held the corner of the heavy paper a few inches above the flame, close enough to feel the heat of it, and I watched the light move in Hollis Crane’s wide glasses.

The cold voice in me, the one that had kept me alive for fifteen years in a world where survival meant trusting nothing, was speaking very clearly now, and what it said was simple.