Varga looked at me. “We can’t do it tonight. If we do it tonight, it’s a reaction. It’s us answering Dahl. I’m not letting the first time we say it out loud be us answering a guy like that.”
“No,” I said.
“So we pull it.”
“We have to.”
He reached out and placed his hand flat on the center of my chest. “We’re still here.”
I could barely stand it.
I called Mark before we left the room, phone at my ear.
He answered without a hello. “Rook. You’re set for tonight; I’ve got the—“
“We’re not doing it tonight.”
Silence. “Okay. Talk to me. Yesterday you were—what changed?”
“Nothing I can get into right now.”
“Rook, I’ve built a runway. If something happened, I need to—“
“Nothing happened you need to manage.” That wasn’t entirely true. Nothing happened he could manage.
He was quiet for a second. “All right. I’ll park it. Nobody will hear it from me. The runway is there, in case you want it again.” He paused. “I don’t need the why. I need to know that the two of you are okay.”
I looked at Varga. He was watching me.
“We’re okay.”
“Okay. Have a good game, Rook. Whatever it is—it will keep.”
I told Varga I was going to the truck. He didn’t follow. The Rook and Varga Show had a dent, but it was still in place.
I told myself I needed air. I shut the truck door behind me and put both hands on the wheel.
I couldn’t control Dahl, but there was one channel open that I could shut down. Kovac had the promise of a morning-after piece. If the truth were going back in the drawer, then I had to close the door on him too.
Kovac wasn’t a problem. I knew that. He’d always been a decent man to me, but his voice wasn’t ours.
Easton flickered up.Spend it on the next one.It couldn’t reach me.
I pulled out my phone and typed a message.
Rook:Daniel. Need to pull the second session. And the piece. All of it. Sorry to do it like this. Can you call me?
The dots came up immediately.
He was there. I sat with both hands back on the wheel, waiting to find out what the only person I’d told the truth to years ago had to say to me now that I was trying to put the truth back in the closet.
Chapter twenty-one
Varga
Imade Rook a sandwich he didn’t ask for and didn’t eat, but I did a good job because it was the only thing I could do something about. I used the seeded bread from the place on Halsted. The turkey was chunks taken off the bone, not the wet, thin-sliced deli stuff. I spread grainy mustard edge to edge so no corner of it came out dry.
He sat four feet away from me, not talking the whole time.
