Then Annette said, “You have one hour before I call you again. If you don’t answer, I make decisions you’ll hate.”
“Understood.”
“And Dex?”
“What?”
“Don’t get noble in a way that gets somebody dead.”
The call ended.
The cabin seemed too quiet after her voice left it.
Jade still had her eyes on me.
Crystal had one hand flat on the table, fingers trembling against scratched wood.
I reached for the crucifix before I meant to. The old silver edge pressed into my palm through my shirt.
Cade had held this same cross with fingers that shook while he told me everything was handled. I’d let the lie sit between us because I’d wanted one night without dragging truth into the light.
I didn’t get that night back.
I faced Crystal Kemp, the woman I’d been sent to recover. The clean answer stood right there in frightened skin and soft clothes and an active warrant. I could cuff her, call North Fork, and say the job had twisted but not broken. Jade had stolen my truck and obstructed the recovery. I could make her part of the report too.
Every form would have a line for it.
None of those lines would tell me why the file missed an identical twin.
None of them would tell me why a terrified bookkeeper copied records and ran.
None of them would tell me why Jade had offered herself up as a decoy, a fugitive, a weapon, and a mistake in my bed before she’d let me find her sister.
I let go of the cross.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said.
Jade’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds like the part where you say something bossy.”
“It is.”
“Of course it is.”
“You’re going to stay away from the door. Crystal is going to sit down before she falls down. Nobody touches a phone unless I see the screen first. Nobody runs.”
Jade took one step closer. “And the cuffs?”
I held her gaze.
“The cuffs stay on my belt,” I said.
Crystal’s breath broke.
Jade didn’t move. “Why?”
“Because I caught the wrong woman yesterday.”
“That didn’t bother you then.”
