Chương 7
Instead she said, “No.”
Nia stopped.
Elena almost told her.
Then thought about Garrett’s access to people, records, workplaces.
She changed direction.
“I had a bad night.”
Nia studied her.
“Do you need me to cover your seven?”
“Yes.”
“That bad?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
No questions.
Just okay.
Elena’s throat tightened.
“Thank you.”
“You owe me coffee.”
“Expensive coffee.”
“Obviously.”
When Elena returned outside, Lucian was gone.
For one clean second, relief flooded her.
Then she saw blood on the concrete.
Her body moved before thought.
The trail led around the corner.
Lucian sat behind a dumpster with a gun pressed under the chin of a man in hospital maintenance clothing.
Elena stopped.
“Lucian.”
The maintenance man whispered, “Please.”
Lucian did not look at her.
“He followed you out.”
The man shook his head frantically.
“I work here.”
Elena recognized him.
Carlos Vega.
Environmental services.
Night shift.
Married.
Two daughters whose school-fundraiser candy bars he sold every spring.
She stepped closer.
“Put the gun down.”
Lucian said, “He took your picture.”
Carlos closed his eyes.
Elena looked at him.
“Did you?”
Carlos’s face crumpled.
“I’m sorry.”
Her stomach sank.
“Why?”
“A man paid me.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucian pressed the barrel harder.
Carlos started crying.
Not loudly.
Humiliatingly.
Elena hated the sound because it made him human when she wanted to hate him.
“How much?” she asked.
“Five hundred.”
Lucian looked at Elena.
She stared at Carlos.
“You sold my location for five hundred dollars?”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“You took my picture.”
“He said you were stealing narcotics.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Of course.
A believable story.
Not a villain buying loyalty.
A frightened employee protecting his job while earning money.
“When?”
“Last week.”
“Only once?”
Carlos hesitated.
Lucian said, “Answer.”
“Three times.”
Elena felt something inside her go quiet.
Garrett had not found her last night.
He had been watching.
“How did he contact you?”
“Text.”
“Show me.”
Carlos reached slowly for his phone.
Lucian lowered the gun enough to let him.
The messages came from a number with no name.
Photograph requests.
Shift questions.
One message asked whether Elena ever left with anyone.
Another asked whether she still drove the blue Honda.
The last arrived forty minutes ago.
CONFIRM SHE REPORTED TO WORK.
Carlos had answered NOT YET.
Elena scrolled.
Garrett replied, LET ME KNOW IF THAT CHANGES.
She handed the phone to Lucian.
He took photographs of the messages with Elena’s clean burner.
Then Elena deleted nothing.
Carlos looked at her.
“Please don’t report me.”
The request was so small compared with everything else that she almost laughed.
“My job—”
“You sold information about me.”
“I thought—”
“You thought five hundred dollars was worth not asking.”
He began, “I have kids.”
Elena’s voice sharpened.
“So do people you hurt.”
Carlos flinched.
She regretted the cruelty immediately.
Not enough to apologize.
“Go inside.”
Lucian said, “He’ll call Garrett.”
Elena looked at Carlos.
“Yes.”
Carlos froze.
She continued, “You’ll tell him you saw me. Alone. Upset. You’ll say I took a rideshare north.”
Lucian understood first.
Carlos did not.
Elena said, “And then you will forward every message he sends you to this phone.”
She wrote the burner number on a piece of gauze wrapper.
Carlos stared.
“What if he knows?”
“Then you can tell the hospital why.”
His face changed.
Fear.
Resentment.
Calculation.
Finally he nodded.
After he left, Lucian said, “You recruited him.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I gave him a way to fix one percent of what he did.”
“That’s recruitment.”
Elena looked at the gun.
“Where did that come from?”
“His waistband.”
“Carlos had a gun?”
Lucian handed it to her by the grip.
Elena checked it.
Air pistol.
Not firearm.
She stared at him.
“You threatened him with a pellet gun.”
“He didn’t know.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“It worked.”
“That is not the standard.”
“It is often my standard.”
She put the gun in a trash bin.
Lucian looked offended.
“We could use that.”
“To frighten pigeons?”
“At close range—”
“No.”
They walked six blocks to a twenty-four-hour diner.
Elena ordered coffee and toast.
Lucian ordered steak and eggs.
She stared at him.
“What?”
“You’ve been shot.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Your body is considering shock.”
“It can consider it over breakfast.”
The waitress, a woman in her sixties named Bev, looked at his borrowed sweatpants and Elena’s badly cut hair and decided not to ask questions.
This made Elena like her immediately.
For ten minutes they ate.
No conspiracy.
No violence.
Lucian put too much hot sauce on his eggs and regretted it.
Elena watched him drink water.
“That was stupid.”
“I have been told.”
“Recently?”
“Repeatedly.”
The burner phone buzzed.
Everything returned.
Carlos had forwarded a message.
GOOD. NORTH WHERE?
Elena replied from Carlos’s phone before realizing they did not have it.
She stopped.
“We need him to respond.”
Lucian shook his head.
“Too risky. Garrett will ask something only Carlos knows.”
“Then what?”
“We let the uncertainty work.”
A second message arrived.
CALL ME.
Elena looked at Lucian.
“That’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“What would you do?”
“Have Carlos call.”
“And if Garrett hears something?”
“He expects Carlos.”
“No. I mean if he hears fear.”
Lucian cut a piece of steak.
“Garrett is used to fear.”
Elena went still.
Lucian noticed.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“You’re right.”
That was worse than being insulted.
She wrapped both hands around the coffee mug.
“Garrett liked fear.”
Lucian said nothing.
“He didn’t hit me every day. People think that’s what it looks like.”
Still nothing.
“He would apologize after. Clean the kitchen. Bring takeout. Once he replaced a cabinet door because he cracked it beside my head. He did such a good job the new paint didn’t match.”
She stared at the black surface of the coffee.
“That bothered me for years. The paint. Not him.”
Lucian spoke carefully.
“Because the paint stayed.”
Elena looked up.
His eyes were on the table.
She said, “Maybe.”
He did not force agreement.
May you like
That mattered.
At 5:18, Lucian’s clean phone rang.
