“You let me take you into custody.”
“I didn’t enjoy that part.”
“You stole my truck.”
“I got it away from the motel and left it where you’d find it.”
Crystal stepped around Jade just enough to face me. “Please don’t arrest her for that.”
Jade turned her head. “Crystal.”
“I’m serious.” Crystal’s voice shook, but she kept going. “She did it for me. She did all of this for me.”
Jade’s jaw worked once.
I took them both in.
Same face. Same eyes. Same listed tattoos if the file had stopped at the easy places. Crystal’s cardigan slipped farther offher shoulder, and the upper edge of an anchor-and-compass tattoo showed there too, softer under skin that hadn’t been pressed against motel sheets under my hands. Near her ankle, below the hem of the gray shorts, flowers wrapped around her left lower leg like Jade’s did.
The file hadn’t been wrong.
It had been incomplete in exactly the way a man like me was supposed to catch before it mattered.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
Annette.
I didn’t answer. Not yet.
Crystal saw the name on the screen and backed into the table.
Jade moved with her, blocking again.
“Don’t call them,” Jade said.
“That’s not your call.”
“It should be hers.”
Crystal swallowed. “I didn’t steal that money.”
I turned to her. “You skipped bond.”
“I ran because somebody set me up, and then somebody came looking for the records I copied.”
Jade’s head turned sharply. “Crystal, stop.”
“He needs to know enough not to drag me back,” Crystal said, and her voice cracked on the last word. Her eyes came back to mine. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I know what this looks like. I know there’s a warrant. But I copied records from work because something was wrong, and after that, the missing money landed on me.”
“What records?”
Crystal’s mouth opened.
Jade answered first. “Not here. Not with your phone buzzing and North Fork waiting for a location.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
Smart.
