AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’ll see with your own two eyes that your concerns are unjustified,” Luke said to Evan. “That young man and woman were never here. Then we can get back to what really—”
The footage turned to fuzz.
Tenpenny stiffened. His movements grew frustrated. He clicked more vigorously on the mouse and tapped the wireless keyboard hard enough that the keys gave off little snapping noises.
“What,” Devine said, “is wrong?”
Evan had never heard so much cold rage compressed into three words.
“Looks like some kind of file corruption.” Tenpenny’s voice sounded muffled, though there was no reason it should be. “I don’t get it.”
The slightest coloring had crept in at the wings of Luke’s nostrils, his eyes enlarged by what looked like true surprise.
Evan reached for his pocket.
Luke and Tenpenny froze.
Evan’s hand emerged with the RoamZone. He thumbed up the recording he’d made. PressedPLAY.
The altered voice came low and growling:“Stop talking about your brother. Stop asking questions about your brother. Or I will come for you like I came for him. You’ll get your counseling, your medication to try to convince yourself that maybe I forgot, that it’s safe to talk to the cops, that the threat is no longer real. But I am. I always will be. You will never be safe from me.”
Tenpenny kept his back turned, his focus on the noncompliant computer. Luke’s face had tightened, his lips a bloodless stroke. He looked livid.
Evan said, “Sounds like you.”
“No. That sounds like acoward. I’ve never been afraid to speak in my own voice.” Devine pivoted to Tenpenny, who looked diminished by fear, stooped, his shoulders melting forward off his spine. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Tenpenny rubbed his palms together. They made a dry, scratching sound. He eased awkwardly around Devine, who did not budge, and exited meekly.
Devine walked over to the chaise longue and sat with his hands on his knees, nostrils flaring as he breathed.
Evan moved to the one opposite.
They stared at each other through the scarlet glow of the room.
“My house will be set in order,” Devine said. “This is a mistake. And it will be rectified. You’ll see. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Me, too,” Evan said.
“It’s an unforeseen hurdle. Nothing more.”
“That’s the thing when you move too fast. You miss stuff.”
“No,” Luke said.
“Then you’re not looking hard enough.”
“At what?”
“Everything. Anything. Pick one thing you’ve done. Stare at it. And follow it down. All the way down.”
“I’ve done that,” Luke said. “I’ve examined every last self-deception, every blind spot, every confirmation bias—”
“Not foryou,” Evan said. “For those people you shove around like pawn pieces. If you really looked at what you’ve done and who you had to be to do it, you’d feel like you were free-falling through darkness. With no bottom.”
“Why do you think that?”
Evan just looked at him.
