"He's right here, actually. Hi, Maxie."
I don't move.
Bane listens for a beat, then tips his head at me, relaying. "He says to tell you hi."
I can’t help but smile.
"He says hi. Mm? Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell him." A pause. "Yeah. You too, brother. Five days. Tell Santos. Get back here."
He hangs up and sets the phone down. Looks at his hand on the desk, then looks at me.
"Come in, Maxie."
I push the door open and close it behind me.
He doesn’t get up from behind the desk. The piece of paper under his hand is, I can see now, a list. Names in two columns. One column has nine names. The other column has nine other names. There are red marks next to four of the names in the first column.
"You heard?" He asks.
"...some."
"Most."
My cheeks go red. "...most."
"Sit."
I do.
He looks at me for one long beat. There’s no anger in his face. There’s something else, something a little more complicated–like he’s deciding whether to fill in all the blanks in my head or just pretend I didn’t hear a thing.
"Ask," he says. "Whatever you didn't get from the hallway. I'll fill it in."
It's not what I expected. I expected the wall. I expectedit's handled, Maxie, the gentle redirect, the door closed kindly in my face. He's not closing it.
I don't waste the opportunity.
"You told Atlas five days. What happens in five days?"
"Talbot's destroying evidence faster than the federal warrant is coming. Shredding a paper trail at a Kline shell in Tennessee." His jaw works once. "After five days there won't be enough left to subpoena. The case stops being a case."
"And the nine names?" I nod at the paper under his hand. I know what they are. I knew the second I saw the columns. "Those are the ones still inside the…” I swallow the lump in my throat, “The facility?"
"Yes."
"Are they—" I have to stop. Start again. "Is it the same? What's being done to them? Is it the same as—"
"Max."
"I need to know if it's the same."
He's quiet for a beat. When he answers, his voice has gone very careful, like he’s afraid of how I’ll react.
"I think it's worse," he says. "It's been longer for some of them than it was for you. That's all I'll say, because the rest of it is not something I'm going to put behind your eyes tonight."
I don't ask anything else about that.
"Then tell me the plan."
