He looked at Wiley across the front room. Wiley stood up from the couch. They didn’t hug at first. They only looked at each other. Then Wiley crossed the room and put his face against the side of Samuel’s neck, and Samuel wrapped both arms around him.
Samuel was tall, slightly stooped through the shoulders. He set the plant down on the kitchen island within ten minutes of arrival, found the largest pot in the cabinet, and started cooking. He didn’t ask questions other than asking Vega where the salt was. Later, he asked Köhler, who came down at seven still in his field-office clothes, whether he ate dairy.
The answer was yes. Köhler sat at the island and watched him work. Forty minutes in, he started crying quietly, without sound. Samuel didn’t turn around. He let Köhler cry.
Eamon left at eleven.
I came down the back stairs at midnight and found Farrow in the kitchen pouring two glasses of water. He’d changed into a clean henley and jeans. The sidearm was at the small of his back. He held one glass out to me without a word.
“Back step.”
“Yes.”
He pulled his coat off the hook by the back door and put it on. I took mine. We went out through the mudroom; Collins locked the inner door behind us, opened the outer one , and we stepped onto the brick step that ran the width of the back of the house.
The air was frosty. It was already December. We sat on a brick wall. It was cold through my jeans.
Farrow drank his glass of water and set it on the step.
“I keep seeing him in my head,” Farrow said.
“Henry?”
“Yes. He thanked the barista by name. I let him walk out the door.”
“Eamon and I let him walk out the door. You watched. There is no version of yesterday where you stand up from that café table and stop him from going to the hotel.”
“I know that.”
“Then it has to be enough.”
“It isn’t. Not yet.”
I drank a swallow of the water. It tasted like the pipes in an old house.
Farrow leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked into the dark of the yard.
“He burned his cover for Köhler.”
“Yes.”
“He could have stayed quiet and gone to the wedding. He could have watched Maria’s people walk through the corridor with the orchids and not said a word. Staying alive was an available choice.”
“Yes.”
“He did the math, Dane.”
“He did.”
Farrow was quiet for a moment. “I’d have done it for you,” he said.
Chapter eighteen
Farrow
Köhler was already in the kitchen when I came down at six.
He was in the same charcoal sweater he’d worn into the field office. He had a fresh mug of steaming coffee.