Another pause.
“And if I am?”
Alistair sighed. “Admit you crossed a line because you were chasing a career-defining story. That you didn’t know what you were going to find but you’d had a call from a reliable source. Tell him it was your one shot.”
“I need to speak to Joe first.”
“Go ahead.”
Kaden let go of Elsie and pushed to his feet. When he went into the living room, he beckoned Joe. “Come outside.”
Joe stood up. “Do we have to leave?”
“I don’t know.”
They grabbed their jackets from the hook in the hall and went out into the street. Kaden walked several metres away from the house with Joe at his side.
“What’s going on?” Joe asked.
Kaden told him almost everything. He didn’t mention the bag of carrots Alistair had offered or the stick he’d wielded, but he did say that Alistair wasn’t convinced by his story.
Joe groaned. “That’s…not good.”
“No.”
“This is a dangerous thing to ask you to do.”
“Maybe not immediately,” Kaden said. “I’d have to make sure I wasn’t seen placing it. But when it’s discovered, would he assume it was me? Then what? How could I ever feel safe?” How could either of them feel safe?
Joe ran a hand through his hair. “If Alistair doesn’t trust me—us—then why is he pursuing this?”
“He said because if he can’t check your background, then neither can the target. Maybe he has no other options.”
“Or we’re expendable.”
Kaden glanced back towards the house, then lowered his voice. “He’s convinced we’re hiding something about you.”
Joe huffed. “He’s not wrong.”
“So let’s give him something. Just enough that he stops digging.”
Joe frowned. “Like what?”
Kaden hesitated. “Something true. Just incomplete.”
“Less detail, not more.”
“Exactly.”
“I could say I grew up in a conflict area,” Joe said slowly. “That someone helped me get out and that I don’t talk about it.”
“He already knows that. What if you’re the son of someone important?”
“There’d be records.”
“Then the son of a mistress of someone important. English or American. That would be kept quiet.”
“She’d have to be dead but still have existed.”
