It takes me twenty minutes to read through everything.
Patrick Holt, laid out in full. Financials, connections, properties. The network Miles found threads through here too, seven names, all linked, all protected by the same web of money and lawyers and favors owed. The oncologist, Dr Reid, has his own section. Three patients. Three families who couldn't fight back. Olivia's mother was the most recent but not the first and would not have been the last.
There are photographs. I don't linger on them.
At the back of the file, there's a single page I wasn't expecting. A timeline. Dates, locations, movements, cross-referenced with phone records.
"You've had this for a while," I say.
"Yes."
"Does the timeline go back further than the envelope?” I ask.
"Yes."
I look up at him. "How long have you been building this?"
Cain is quiet for a moment. "Long enough to do it properly." He pauses. "I needed it to be airtight, Hayden. These aren't men who make mistakes. You go at them with anything less than everything and they walk, and then they know you're coming, and then everyone around you becomes a liability."
"And now it's airtight."
"Yes." His eyes don't move from mine.
I close the file and slide it back across the desk.
"The hit and run," I say, keeping my voice even. "Olivia's parents. Do you have anything on that?"
Cain looks at me for a long moment.
"I have people looking into it," he says.
Not yes. Not no.I have people looking into it.
Which tells me he knows more than he's saying. Which means he's protecting me from something, or protecting himself, or both.
I nod once. "Okay."
I stand up.
"Hayden." His voice stops me at the door. "Whatever you're carrying right now, and I know you're carrying something, don't do anything without talking to me first."
I look at him over my shoulder.
"I know the rule," I say.
"I know you know it." A pause. "That's not what I asked."
The silence between us sits there, loaded.
"I'll see you later in the week," I say, and I leave before he can push any further, he has a way that makes us talk about things we don’t want to talk about.
Olivia’s at the house when I get back.
She's in the kitchen with Lileah, the two of them at the counter with what looks like the aftermath of a baking attempt. There’s flour on the surface, a cooling rack with something on it that might generously be called a biscuit, and Lileah looking deeply unimpressed with her own work.
For a second I just stand in the doorway and watch her.
She turns, sees me and smiles.
