Chapter 13 - A CITY BELIEVES A FACE
By evening, New York had chosen the version of Sebastian it preferred.
Julian appeared calm, wounded, and generous.
The real Sebastian appeared in leaked arrest photographs with blood on his collar.
Ward Meridian’s stock recovered within minutes of Julian’s speech.
Public sympathy followed money.
Valerie watched the broadcast from a federal safe house.
“He smiles more than Sebastian,” she said.
Eleanor sat beside her with bandages beneath her blouse.
“That is because he wants to be loved.”
“And Sebastian does not?”
“Sebastian wants to be impossible to abandon.”
Valerie looked away.
Marcus contacted her through an old emergency frequency.
He instructed her to come alone to Grand Central Terminal.
Eleanor begged her not to go.
Valerie went anyway.
She found Marcus beneath the celestial ceiling, surrounded by commuters.
He looked exhausted and carried no weapon.
“The key is in a place Julian cannot search without exposing himself,” he said.
“Where?”
“Inside Sebastian.”
Valerie stared at him.
Marcus explained that Sebastian’s mother had implanted the storage capsule beneath his shoulder during childhood surgery.
The silver key was only a decoder.
Conrad needed both.
“Why did you disappear?”
“Because Margaret is not protecting Sebastian.”
“What is she doing?”
“Delivering him.”
A train roared beneath them.
Marcus handed Valerie a subway card with an address written across it.
“Go there at midnight.”
“You come with me.”
“I cannot.”
Two men in gray coats appeared at the far end of the concourse.
Marcus saw them.
“Run.”
Valerie hesitated.
Marcus pushed her toward the crowd and fired at the ceiling.
Panic scattered hundreds of people between them.
Valerie reached the stairs and looked back.
The men had Marcus on his knees.
Margaret Sloan stepped from behind a pillar.
May you like
She raised a pistol to Marcus’s head.
Then she looked directly through the crowd at Valerie and smiled.
