You did exactly right, Henry told her. And she looked at him with something that was not quite absolution but was reaching toward it. The minutes that followed stretched long and strange. Henry was not supposed to be there at all. Alvarez had been clear that an injured man belonged in his bed, not in a darkened hallway during an arrest.
But when the detective and his officers took up their positions, Henry rose, pulled the IV needle from the back of his hand against the nurse's protests, and made his way to the old wing on unsteady legs, because the one promise he had made was that he would not step back, and he was not going to break it in the first hour after making it. He took up a place in the supply room beside the officer there, out of sight, close enough to see the corridor through the cracked door. Lia stood alone in the work lamp light at the far end, exactly as planned, her arms wrapped around herself, looking for all the world like a woman who had run out of the will to fight. Denise waited around the corner, the phone still in her hand, in case Simon's nerve faltered a second time. Everyone was where they were supposed to be.
Simon came exactly on time. Henry heard him before he saw him. The unhurried click of expensive shoes on bare concrete, a man in no rush at all, a man who believed he was walking toward a victory his mother-in-law had personally arranged. Then he came into the lamplight, tall and well-dressed and perfectly composed, and Henry understood for the first time what Lia had been trying to explain. There was nothing obviously monstrous about him.
He looked like the kind of man who got the best table without asking. He looked reasonable. That was the horror of him. There she is. Simon said, his voice warm, almost tender.
I have to admit I wasn't sure you'd really come. Your mother had to talk me into believing it. You've been making such poor decisions lately. I'm here. Lia said.
Her voice shook, but she held her ground. I just want this to be over, Simon. So do I. He moved toward her with an easy predatory grace. The That's all I've ever wanted.
For you to stop fighting the obvious. We were always going to end up here, you and I. You needed to get the carpenter out of your system, and now you have. And look, he's lying in a hospital bed where he belongs, and you're here with me. Everything's exactly where it should be.