Page 68 of Jonah’s Lure

Miguel looked down the corridor. “I should have trusted you sooner.”

“You followed the evidence,” Angus said.

“I followed it too far.”

“No.” Angus kept his eyes on the door. “You followed it until it told the truth.”

A moment passed between them the way it passes between men who have worked together long enough to know what silence means.

“For what it’s worth,” Miguel said, “I never stopped wanting it to be wrong.”

“I know,” Angus said.

He went in.

The room was warmer than the corridor. Jonah’s eyes were open—not fully, but enough. He acknowledged Angus’s presence with a small movement and Angus nodded.

Frank was in the chair beside the bed. He stood when Angus came in, and Angus waved him back down.

“I won’t stay,” Angus said.

He stood near the foot of the bed and looked at Jonah. IV in the back of his left hand. His wrists were bandaged, the zip tie having cut deep enough to require thick wraps. He was awake, which was the main thing.

Frank cleared his throat.

“Clara showed me the expansion figures,” he said.

Jonah looked at him.

“They’re good,” Frank said.

“Thanks,” Jonah said, his voice rough from disuse.

Clara had told Angus that Frank had been sitting in that chair for three hours without managing more than a sentence at a time. Angus watched him try again the way you watch a man approach something difficult at an angle, circling it rather than facing it.

“I should have looked sooner,” Frank said. “At the annex.”

Jonah didn’t say it was fine. He didn’t say don’t worry about it. He said, “Yes.”

The word sat in the room.

Frank looked at his hands. “I thought you wanted to prove a point.”

“I did.” A breath. “I wanted you to listen.”

Angus took a step toward the doorway.

“I am proud of you,” Frank said to the blanket, or the space between them, or wherever he’d been keeping it for years. “I just never said it where you could hear it.”

Jonah closed his eyes.

“I wanted it too much,” he said.

Frank’s voice broke—not loudly, just the sound of something giving way that had been held a long time. “I gave you too little.”

The room was quiet.

“When you’re home,” Frank said finally, “we’ll look at the annex file.”