“That’s the worst thing you could have said.”

“Yes,” said my father. “It’s also the true one, and you’ve had enough of the other kind.”

Chapter 14 — Provenance

I drove back over the bridge and I did not go home.

I went to the Prettyman Courthouse, and I sat in the lobby for two hours until Ruth Adeyemi could see me, and I told her that Arthur Harper was alive.

I want to explain why, because Rachel Mercer thought I had lost my mind and Peter Vaillancourt billed me for ninety minutes of trying to stop me and my father, when I called him that night, said only, “Good.”

Not because it was noble. Because of provenance.