He nodded once. “Then we’ll go there.”
His security men stepped back as we walked out, giving me space. The rainy afternoon had turned silver, the parking lot shining beneath puddles and oil-slick reflections. I could feel faces pressed to the diner windows behind me.
Harrison did not rush me across the street.
At the park, we stopped beneath a leafless maple near a bench damp with rain. One of his aides quietly wiped the seat with a handkerchief before disappearing several feet away. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
Three weeks ago, I had counted quarters to buy gas.
Now someone had wiped a public bench for me.
I sat, still holding the envelope.
Harrison remained standing until I looked up.
“Please,” I said, uncomfortable.
He sat at the far end of the bench, leaving a careful distance between us.
“Start from the beginning,” I said. “And don’t talk around it.”
A faint smile touched his mouth, not amused, but respectful.
“Fair enough.”
He looked older up close than he did in interviews. Still handsome, still polished, but there was fatigue beneath his eyes. The kind illness leaves behind even after survival.
“Three weeks ago,” he said, “I was brought to St. Jude after an accident during a private transport. I lost a great deal of blood. My blood type is AB-negative. The hospital didn’t have enough on hand.”
“I know that part.”
“You donated before anyone knew whether I would live.”
“I didn’t know it was you.”
“That is exactly why I came.”
I frowned.
He took a breath. “After I recovered, I asked for the donor’s name so I could express my gratitude. The hospital refused at first, for privacy reasons. My legal team followed the correct process. You had signed a consent form allowing limited contact if the recipient wished to thank you.”
I barely remembered signing anything. I had been exhausted, hungry, thinking mostly about Ethan’s prescription in the pharmacy bag.
“When your name came across my desk,” Harrison continued, “it was familiar.”
“Why?”
He reached into his coat and removed another photograph, this one protected in a clear sleeve.
He handed it to me.
It showed my mother again.
This time she was standing in front of a small white house with blue shutters. She looked younger than in the first photograph, maybe nineteen or twenty. Beside her stood the same man from the lake picture.
And beside him stood Harrison Cole.
Not the Harrison from magazines.
A much younger Harrison, all sharp cheekbones and restless ambition, one arm slung around the other man’s shoulders.
“That man,” Harrison said softly, “was my older brother.”