Page 68 of Antihero

Paranoia nibbled at her brain stem. Though she knew it was pointless, she couldn’t resist turning a slow three-sixty there by her Jeep, eyes picking across windows and rooftops.

The phone shrilled, startling her, and she dropped the box, chocolates bouncing out and scattering across the hood. She pried out the phone, lifted it to her face.

“X.”

“Templeton.”

Her breath misted and misted again.

“I’m texting you an address,” he said. In her hand, the phone hummed. “You’ll find all sorts of illegal shit here.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Conduct a federal raid.”

“This may come as a surprise, but I don’t work for you.”

“No. But we could work together.”

“‘Work together’? If I ever catch you, I’m putting your ass away.”

“Obviously,” Evan said. “But in the meantime…”

“I’d have to be fully transparent, clear anything like this with the director, deputy director, and chief counsel, not to mention half the fucking Office of Professional Responsibility, which I happen to—”

“Naomi.”

He almost never used her first name.

“This is an olive branch,” he said. “You can strangle it with red tape, bury it beneath subcommittees and oversight panels, have legal hack it up into kindling. And we’ll be right back where we started.”

“Which is?”

“Where you represent the law in all its indispensability, righteousness, and necessity. And I represent those the law fails.”

One of the dark chocolates wagged in the breeze. She thought, Fuck it, picked it up, took a bite. Cherry filling. Gross. She spit it out. Bit another. Ganache. Score.

“Or?” she mumbled around the chocolate.

“Or you can figure out which of your colleagues are more than bureaucrats, which of them are actually willing to discharge their duties cleanly in investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial channels at the federal level. Clear a lane of sanctioned competence. And I’ll hand you a case to drive through that lane lawfully.”

“Lawfully? You? Doth mine ears deceive me?”

“Figure it out and fast. I won’t wait for the usual excuses.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is a statement of fact.”

“What are you, Batman?”

“Impatient. That’s what I am.”

The wind blew hard, flecks of almost-snow pinpricking her cheeks. She popped the second half of the truffle in her mouth, chewed while she contemplated the impossible. “If you want to do anything like this, you have to be reachable in some way. I’d be out over my skis. Far.”

“You can contact me at 1–855–2-NOWHERE.”

“That’s real?” She sucked in another icy breath. “Of course it’s real.”