When I hung up, Colt just nodded. His phone buzzed in his pocket — he glanced at it, and whatever he saw made something in his face go soft. He pocketed it again without explanation. Lilac, no doubt. Scan results, appointment reminder, the ongoing logistics of a pregnancy he was treating like a military campaign. Last week she’d confiscated his hospital route spreadsheet. I’d given him my backup copy.
He got up, told me I smelled like a gym bag, and went back to whatever he’d been doing before Dutch sent him.
I sat there for a while longer debating whether to take a shower or get a drink. The shower won first. I stood under the water until it ran cold, put on clean clothes, and stripped the sheets off my bed because they smelled worse than I had. Put fresh ones on. Then I walked out to the bar for a drink anyway.
It tasted the same as every other night. I’d wanted it to taste different — worse, maybe, now that I’d made the appointment. Some sign that something had shifted. But the whiskey didn’t know I’d called a therapist, and my hands didn’t know I’d changed the sheets, and by the second glass I wasn’t sure I knew either.
Chapter 20
?
— Holden —
Dutch called me in two days after I booked the Larkin appointment. Just me and Glitch in his office, door closed. No agenda written anywhere.
“Sit,” Dutch said.
I sat. Glitch had his laptop open, which meant he’d brought something for show and tell.
Dutch set a bottle of water in front of me. Not whiskey. I noticed that.
“Glitch found something,” Dutch said when he was ready. “About the run.”
Not about the footage. Not about Bea or the room or whatever had happened while I was blacked out. About the run. “Tell me,” I said.
Glitch turned the laptop toward me. A series of transaction records, names I didn’t recognize, timestamps. He gave me a moment to look, then pulled it back. “The ambush was coordinated,” he said. “Not opportunistic. We’ve known that since it happened — the positioning, the timing, the equipment. Someone knew exactly where you’d be and when.”
“We knew that.”
“We now know who told them.” He met my eyes. “Reyes.”
My hands went flat on the table before I knew they’d moved.
Reyes. Twenty-two years old. Good instincts on the road. Showed up early, stayed late. I’d personally approved hisadvancement to the last stage of his prospect period. I’d stood in this room and told Dutch he was solid — that he’d earned the next step.
The last time I’d seen him before the run, he’d been in the garage helping Danny with a tire change. The two of them shoulder to shoulder, Danny showing him the technique I’d taught him. I’d watched from the doorway and thought:good prospects. Both of them.
“How.” My voice didn’t sound right.
“Spokane crew. Not one of the established operations — new outfit, trying to make a name.” Glitch’s voice was flat and precise. “They paid him fourteen thousand dollars.”
Fourteen thousand dollars. That was what Danny’s life had cost. Less than a used truck.
“He gave them the route, the formation, the timing,” Glitch said.
I was gripping the edge of the table. I made myself let go. “When did you find this?”
“A few days ago. It took time. They were careful. He was careful. But the money had to move somewhere.” He glanced at Dutch. “We brought you in as soon as we had it confirmed.”
The room was very quiet. I could hear the clock on Dutch’s wall. I could hear my own breathing, too fast, and I couldn’t make it slow down.
“He didn’t know what they’d do with it,” Glitch started, and then stopped himself. “No. That’s not something you can claim when you hand someone the location of your brothers on a live run. He knew enough.”
I looked at Dutch. “Reyes?”
“It’s been handled,” Dutch said.
He said it the way you said things that were closed, that were over, that you wouldn’t be returning to. I sat with whathandledmeant. I didn’t need him to draw it out.
