Chapter Six
CALEB
I sleep badly. Not because I think Helena sent the photograph. That would be simpler. I sleep badly because I believe she didn’t.
Halden. Noon. Come alone.
She replies thirty seconds later.
Yes.
No question. No argument. That bothers me too. At twelve exactly, she steps out of the elevator.
Alone. Dark trousers. Black coat. Hair pulled back.
No Tessa. No security in sight. I am standing in an empty fourth-floor office because I don’t want this conversation in the studio where Mason can accidentally hear half of it and spend the next decade hearing all of it. Helena closes the door behind her.
“You said alone.”
“I noticed.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No.”
She waits. That might be the first thing she does that surprises me today. No opening argument. No attempt to control the conversation.
Just waits. I point to the old radiator beneath the window.
“Sit.”
Her eyebrows rise.
“Was that intentionally authoritarian?”
“Yes.”
She sits. I stay standing for maybe four seconds before realizing how ridiculous that makes me feel. So I sit across from her on a folded drop cloth. We are a billionaire and an architect having a confrontation on a dirty floor beside a radiator that has not worked properly since 1987.
Good.
“How much do you know about me?”
Her eyes remain on mine.
“A lot.”
“I need more than that.”
“I know.”
She looks toward the window once. Then back.
“I know where you went to school. Where you worked before you opened the studio. Your major clients. The lawsuit you were threatened with three years ago and won before filing. Your father’s death. Your mother’s address.”
My stomach tightens.
“Keep going.”
“Your business partner. Public financial records. Property records. Professional memberships.”
“Keep going.”
She takes a breath.
“I know your work schedule more often than I should.”
“How?”
“Observation.”
“Say it normally.”
Her expression flickers.
“I watched you.”
There. The room does not collapse. I almost wish it would.
“How often?”
“At first? Occasionally.”
“And later?”
“Most weekdays.”
I stare at her.
“From where?”
“Different places.”
“That is not an answer.”
“My apartment, sometimes.”
My eyes move toward the window. The Manhattan skyline. Her apartment is somewhere out there.
“You can see the Halden from your apartment.”
“Yes.”
“How long have you lived there?”
“Four years.”
“So you didn’t choose it because of me.”
“No.”
The ridiculous relief that gives me makes me angry.
“Did you follow me home?”
“Twice.”
My fingers curl against my knee.
“Inside?”
“No.”
“Did you enter my building?”
“No.”
“My apartment?”
“No.”
“Did you put cameras anywhere?”
“No.”
“Track my phone?”
“No.”
“Car?”
“No.”
“Read private messages?”
“No.”
“Hack anything?”
“No.”
Her answers are immediate. I believe them. I hate that I believe them.
“What did you do?”
“I checked public schedules. Event postings. Construction permits. Your studio’s public accounts. Sometimes building access after I owned the Halden.”
“Sometimes.”
“Once yesterday morning.”
My mind snaps to the dark office.
“You checked whether I came in.”
“No.”
She pauses. Then corrects herself.
“I almost did.”
That is worse and better at the same time.
“What stopped you?”
“You.”
I laugh once, without humor.
“I wasn’t there.”
“You had already said things yesterday that made me aware I was crossing lines you didn’t know existed.”
For a moment, she sounds tired. Not fragile. Just tired. It is the first time I’ve heard it.
“Did you buy anything else?” I ask.
Her posture changes slightly.
“Define anything.”
“Not buildings, Helena.”
A quiet exhale.
“At a preservation auction, there was a drawing.”
I remember immediately. Charcoal and ink. An elevation study I almost did not submit because it felt too personal and because Mason said charity auctions are mostly rich people buying guilt with tax deductions. It sold for three times my estimate.
“Mine.”
“Yes.”
“You bought it.”
“Through an intermediary.”
“Why?”
“I wanted it.”
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Of course it is. I stand and walk to the window. She lets me. I press my hands to the sill.
The paint is cracked beneath my fingers.
“You understand that this is stalking.”
“Yes.”
I turn. No argument. No semantics. No attempt to use research or interest or security to make it cleaner.
“You stalked me.”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying that like we’re discussing your favorite restaurant.”
“I don’t know how you would prefer me to say it.”
“Maybe with some indication you understand how insane it sounds.”
Her eyes drop. The anger I expected never comes; color rises high on her cheekbones instead.
She lowers her eyes to her hands. For several seconds she says nothing. When she speaks, her voice is quieter.
“I understand.”
The answer lands harder than a defense would have. I look away first. Damn her.
“Why me?”
She does not answer. I wait. Still nothing.
“Helena.”
“At the hearing, you defended a building I lived in when I was sixteen.”
“I know that part.”
“You said its value wasn’t only what somebody could extract from the land.”
“You remember the wording.”
“Yes.”
“You remember everything?”
“No.”
I almost smile. She continues before I can.
“I remember things that matter to me.”
The room goes still. My anger is not gone. Neither is the part of me that hears the sentence in the wrong way. I sit again because standing feels like giving my body too much room to react.
“You researched me because I said something about a building.”
“At first.”
“And then?”
Her thumb moves against the side of her index finger. I saw that yesterday. A tell. She sees me notice.
Stops.
“Then I liked knowing.”
“That is the creepiest honest answer you’ve given me.”
“I know.”
“And somehow not the worst.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
She closes her mouth. A second passes.
“Sorry.”
That almost makes me laugh. Almost. I lean back against the wall.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.”
Her attention sharpens.
“You don’t get new information about me unless I give it to you or it is actually required for the Halden.”
She nods.
“No personal reports.”
“Yes.”
“No location.”
“Yes.”
“No security people looking at my friends, family, work, coffee, whatever.”
“Yes.”
“If somebody sends another message, you share what you know. All of it.”
That one takes half a second longer.
“Helena.”
“Yes.”
“You hesitated.”
“I was thinking about privileged security information.”
“Then don’t use privileged information to investigate me.”
Her jaw tightens. Not at me. At the restriction. Good.
“Agreed.”
I study her.
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you think something is dangerous?”
There. The first real problem. Her gaze shifts to the old radiator, then back.
“I will tell you.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She breathes in. Lets it out.
“I will not intervene without telling you unless there is an immediate threat and no reasonable opportunity to ask.”
I should be satisfied. I’m not. But it is the most honest compromise we are going to get today.
“Okay.”
Something in her shoulders loosens. Barely. I see it. I dislike that I see it.
“One more thing.”
She waits.
“Why did you buy the Halden?”
“The owner intended to empty it.”
“You said that.”
“And demolish enough of it to make your preservation work irrelevant.”
“That explains wanting to stop him.”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t explain fourteen percent.”
She looks at me.
“The number guaranteed the sale.”
“For the building.”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
Her silence answers first. Then: “Partly.” I look down. There is a fleck of plaster near my boot.
I push it once with the toe.
“You could have told me.”
“You didn’t know me.”
“You knew me.”
The words come out sharper than I intend. She absorbs them. Does not defend herself. That helps.
A little.
“What happens now?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
The answer surprises both of us. She looks toward the door.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Yes would be safer. Yes would be clean. Yes would make sense. I look at the woman who has spent eleven months knowing things she had no right to know and who, for the first time since I met her, is waiting for permission to stand up.
“Not yet.”
She stays. We sit on the dirty floor without speaking for almost a minute. It is the strangest minute I have had in a long time. And somehow the first one with Helena Ward that belongs equally to both of us.