"Since when do you and Kenna talk?"
The silence on the other end is a fraction too long. "She called the rider liaison office looking for you. They forwarded it to me because I'm listed as your emergency contact, you idiot."
The explanation is perfectly reasonable. The pause before he gave it wasn't.
Colt continues. "Be careful, Grant. Please."
"I'm always careful."
"That's a lie and we both know it."
He hangs up. Rainey's watching me with an unreadable expression.
"He's worried about you," she says.
"He worries too much."
"Or you don't worry enough." She opens the laptop again. "For what it's worth, I think he's right about one thing. If this is real, we're both in danger the moment they figure out we're digging."
"You scared?"
"Terrified." She meets my eyes. "But I'm doing it anyway."
Something about the way she says it, that combination of fear and determination, makes me see her differently. Not just a photographer documenting the circuit. Not just someone with evidence. Someone who's choosing to fight even though it scares her.
"We should set some ground rules," I say.
"Like what?"
"Like if this gets too dangerous, you walk away. Take your evidence somewhere safe and let me handle the rest."
"Not happening."
"Rainey."
"Grant." She closes the laptop. "You don't get to make that call. I'm in this because I choose to be. Not because you're letting me tag along. We're partners in this, or we're nothing."
Partners. I haven't had a partner since Tyler died. Haven't wanted one. But looking at Rainey now, at the steel in her eyes and the set of her jaw, I realize I couldn't stop her from helping even if I tried.
"Fine," I say. "Partners."
"Good. Now pull over at that diner. I need food and more coffee."
I pull into the parking lot of a roadside place that looks like it hasn't been updated since 1975. The kind of diner that serves breakfast all day and has pies rotating in a display case by the register. We slide into a booth, and a waitress who looks older than the building itself takes our order without writing anything down.
"You're going to get yourself killed," Rainey says once the waitress leaves.
"Probably."
"I'm serious. You beat information out of Vic. You're asking questions people clearly don't want asked. Eventually, they're going to come after you."
"Let them."
"That's not bravery. That's a death wish."
Maybe she's right. Maybe I am looking for a way to join Tyler instead of avenge him. Maybe that's why I'm riding bulls nobody else will touch and picking fights with conspiracies I can't prove exist.
Or maybe I just can't live with myself if I don't try.
