Curtains never fully open.
A child who remembered cars.
A mother who said she was managing.
Connor reached into his coat and took out his phone.
Sarah immediately straightened.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t even know who I’m calling.”
“I know enough about you.”
There it was.
Four years did not erase Connor Malone’s reputation.
Thomas had been one of the few people who spoke to Connor as if the stories around his name were merely weather.
Sarah had never asked for details, and Connor had never offered them.
Now she shook her head.
“I don’t want somebody hurt because a car made me nervous.”
“Nobody is getting hurt.”
“Connor.”
“I said nobody is getting hurt.”
He made the call.
“Gray sedan outside Sarah Webb’s building.
I need a plate and a name.
Quietly.”
He ended the call before the person on the other end could answer.
Sarah stared at him.
“You can’t just appear after four years and take over my life.”
“No.”
His answer came quickly.
“You’re right.”
That seemed to surprise her.
Connor slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“I should have appeared four years ago.”
Sarah looked away.
The apartment seemed even smaller after that sentence.
A refrigerator humming.
A pipe ticking in the wall.
Gracie turning pages in the next room.
Connor noticed an unopened envelope beside the sink and a stack of bills underneath it.
He deliberately did not read them.
Thomas would have hated this.
Not the apartment.
Not the lack of money.
Thomas had grown up with almost nothing.
He would have hated that Sarah had learned to struggle quietly because nobody who once called him family had checked whether his family was still standing.
“I thought you had people,” Connor said.
Sarah laughed once, without humor.
“So did I.”
Her parents had moved away before Thomas died.
A sister called when she could but had children of her own.
Friends had brought casseroles after the funeral, then returned to their jobs, marriages, bills, and ordinary Tuesdays.
Sarah had worked until the chest episodes made full shifts impossible.
She did cleaning when she could.
Bookkeeping from home when someone offered it.
Anything that fit between Gracie’s school hours and the days when climbing one flight of stairs left her gripping the railing.
“Have you seen a doctor?” Connor asked.
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
