35. Corridors & Closed Doors
CORRIDORS & CLOSED DOORS
MORGAN
Morgan took her coffee out to the porch, as had become her habit, and wondered if Patrick was up yet. Waking up in his bed, surrounded by his big body was preferable to waking up in Frank’s guest room with a dog who hogged the covers and snored, but it was what it was.
The problem was, she didn’t know what it was.
The sex had been great, but it had felt like more than just a physical release. That was what she was having trouble reconciling. So she did what she always did—filed it away to process later and focused instead on her most recent revelation.
Her grandfather’s housekeeper was—or had been—a CIA level operative, and had killed Anthony Varro because Varro had been sent to kill Morgan.
Even growing up in her stepfather’s world and literally making a career out of death, that was a lot to process. And yet, she wasn’t afraid, or horrified, or feeling any of the things she should have been feeling. No. She felt… grateful. Cared for.
Safe.
The sky had gone clear after a gray start.
She could hear Frank at the wood pile around the back of the house, the rhythmic crack of the axe carrying cleanly in the still air.
His strikes were slower and more deliberate than a younger man’s, but he was still fit and disciplined at the age of…
Morgan paused. She didn’t know how old Frank was. Late 70s, maybe?
Morgan wrapped both hands around her mug and looked out at the property.
That realization she’d had earlier that morning about being a part of something settled warm and deep in her chest. It wasn’t just about establishing roots, but about having the opportunity to thrive with new growth.
She had a whole new understanding of why Patrick wanted to stay among family and friends.
She was beginning to think that maybe she did, too.
She was still contemplating that when the ax went quiet and Frank came around the side of the house, breath visible in the cold air, a stack of split wood balanced in the crook of his arm. He saw her on the porch and took the steps, setting the wood in the box beside the door.
He straightened. Looked at her. Silent knowledge passed between them.
He knew that she knew about Donna.
“You’re still here,” he said evenly.
“I’m still here,” she confirmed.
Approval shone in his eyes. He nodded once. “Good,” he said, and went inside.
Morgan finished her coffee and followed him.
Donna was already gone for the day. The kitchen was clean, except for the Dutch oven that sat on the stove and the fresh loaf of bread on a cutting board, covered with gingham. Morgan ladled a bowl for each of them, then sat down at the table across from Frank.
Frank reached for the bread and cut off a thick slab for her, then for himself. That was one of the things she’d come to appreciate about him. He didn’t ask. He just did.
“Tell me about my father,” she said.
Frank was quiet for a moment. Considering.
“He had the Sullivan eyes,” Frank said. “Same as you.”
“And you,” she said.
He nodded. “He was a good man. Not one to compromise. That’s not the Sullivan way. Cared too much and said too little.” The corner of his mouth moved. “Also the Sullivan way.”
“You weren’t around much, were you?” Morgan asked. Not in an accusing way, just a curious one.
“No,” he confirmed. “The life I was living at the time didn’t accommodate it.
I didn’t know about him until he was already grown, and by then…
” He looked at his bowl. “By then he’d already become who he was going to be without me.
Maybe if I’d known about him earlier, I could have prevented him from making the same mistakes I did. ”
“What kind of mistakes?” Morgan asked quietly.
“Putting faith in the wrong people for the right reasons.”
She thought about the books and wondered how much of that Frank had experienced firsthand.
Shadow sat up and leaned against Frank’s leg, as if he’d sensed his pain and wanted to provide comfort.
Morgan cleared her throat and summoned the courage to ask the question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered. When you didn’t know, there was still possibility. “Is he dead?”
Frank’s eyes snapped up to hers. “You don’t know?”
Morgan shook her head. “I never met him. I don’t know anything about him, except for a box of things I found at the back of mom’s closet from before I was born. A photograph. A ticket stub. A four-leaf clover, pressed between the pages of a small diary.”
The diary had fit in the palm of her hand, and of the year’s worth of pages, only a handful of them had been filled in. It had been just enough to figure out that her parents had known each other for a very short time, and that she had been the unexpected result.
Frank studied her closely, then exhaled. “Things might have been different if he knew about you.”
She wanted to ask Frank more. Just like she’d asked her mother more. But she’d just found Frank, and she wasn’t ready to lose him yet by digging too deep. This was clearly a deeply personal subject for both of them.
“When I wrote you that letter a few years ago,” she said instead, “I didn’t expect you to write back.”
“I know.”
“Why did you?”
He was quiet long enough that she thought he might leave it unanswered. Then: “Because he was my son. And you are his daughter. And I’d already missed enough.”
She refilled both their bowls and sat back down, both content with silence and each other’s company. She appreciated that about him. Wondered what other traits she might have inherited from this man she barely knew and yet who felt like a kindred soul.
“You weren’t surprised to hear from me,” she said finally. “When I was put on leave.”
Frank met her eyes. “No.”
“You’ve been watching over me, haven’t you?”
“Keeping an eye on,” he said, with the faint precision of a man who chose his words carefully. “There’s a difference.”
She accepted that distinction. “Did you know Varro was coming after me?”
“I knew someone might,” he said. “Not who, and not when. When you started asking questions that made the wrong people uncomfortable, I understood what that could mean.”
“Because you’ve seen it before.”
“Because I’ve seen it before,” he confirmed.
She looked at him steadily. “Who are you, Frank? Or who were you?”
A long pause.
“I’m retired,” he said.
“From?”
“Work I’m not going to describe to you.” His eyes held hers. “Not because I don’t trust you. Because there are some things that should never be spoken of.”
“What about Donna?”
Something shifted in Frank’s expression. Warmer than guarded. “Donna is someone I’ve trusted with my life more times than I can count, for a very long time.”
Morgan nodded slowly. There was a whole corridor of closed doors behind that answer.
“Okay,” she said simply.
Frank studied her. “You’re not going to push.”
“I’m not going to push.”
“Why?”
She thought about it honestly. “Because I think we’re a lot alike, you and I.” She met his eyes. “And because you wrote back.”
His eyes glistened with a momentary sheen of moisture before he blinked it away.
“Good.”
Her phone buzzed. Patrick’s name appeared on the screen notification.
Frank’s eyes went to it, then back to her.
“Go on,” he said, leaning back.
She answered.
“Hey.” Patrick’s voice was warm. “How’s your day going?”
“Better than expected.” She looked at Frank, who was slicing more bread and pretending not to listen. “Yours?”
“Productive. Can I see you?”
She glanced at Frank. The corner of his mouth was doing the thing it did. Not quite a quirk. Possibly a twitch.
“Yes,” she said, fighting a smile of her own at the eagerness in Patrick’s voice. “Can you give me an hour?”
“Sure. Where?”
She thought for a moment. “I’ll come to you.”
She hung up and set the phone down. Frank was chewing thoughtfully but his eyes were glittering with amusement.
“What?” Morgan asked.
“He’s smitten.” He looked up, and there it was again—that quiet, steady warmth that had been there all along underneath the reserve.
Morgan felt color rise in her cheeks.
“I think you might be as well,” Frank said.
Morgan opened her mouth to deny it and couldn’t.
“He’s a good man.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Worth saying twice. Go on, now. Don’t keep him waiting.”
Morgan stood and took her bowl to the sink. Outside the kitchen window, the last of the leaves were coming down in the wind, spinning slowly toward the ground.
“Frank,” she said, without turning around.
“Yes.”
“For the record, I’m glad you wrote back.”
Behind her, the silence was the warmest kind.
“So am I,” he said. “So am I.”