Chapter Sixty
Asher
By the time we finish the last file, we have eighty-seven names written in the notebook between us.
A little after four, we start working through those names one at a time. All the while, my dark phone screen sits like a lead weight on the table.
Raine’s thoughts turn to Ellen more than once. I can always tell. She goes still. All except for her hands. The tremor returns whenever she’s stressed. I should have found a doctor I could pay off. Gotten her an MRI. Treatment. Even if it would have been risky.
We work side by side, checking each of the eight-seven names against public databases, professional licensing boards, property tax records.
I use my connections to access voter registrations and credit reports.
People always leave traces somewhere.
We don’t speak much. Brief check-ins with what we’ve found. Tea and coffee refills. The occasional clarifying question. This is too important for small talk.
Raine moves quicker than I do, cross-referencing two systems at once, running secondary searches without breaking the rhythm of the first.
When a lead dead-ends, she doesn’t linger over it. She pivots. She’s composed, but I can see the effort it takes to stay that way.
By five, the sun is a distant memory and the rain hits the windows in sheets. I need to stretch. To move muscles that have been locked up tight for too long.
I pick up my phone for the tenth time, checking the screen, but there’s nothing. No message from my client. Nothing new from GSD.
Opening the fridge, I pull out six apples, butter, and flour. I have no idea if Raine likes apple pie, but baking is meditation with sugar.
Once I’ve made the pie crust dough, I return to the list. An hour later, we’ve found thirty-six that resolve to something. Driver’s licenses, tax records, mortgages.
All evidence of messy, verifiable lives.
The remaining column is cleaner because there’s nothing there. No death certificates, no employment records, no forwarding addresses.
Fifty-one names that don’t exist after they were escalated to RJ-3 and sent to Coherent Path.
Raine stares at the second list for more than five full minutes, her fingers trembling along the edge of the laptop.
“We can’t do anything more with these tonight,” she says. “I’m going to start working on my affidavit. As much as I can get through without the Procedure Index.”
I offer her my hand, and when she takes it, I bring her fingers to my lips. “You’re running on fumes. That’s not strategy. That’s exhaustion.”
“What else am I supposed to do, Asher?” she snaps.
“They’re going to shock Ellen. Three times.
Increasing amplitude. Do you know what happens after the current goes through your head?
You have a seizure. In a hospital—when it’s actually used for therapy—they sedate you so there’s no pain.
Coherent Path doesn’t give anyone that luxury. ”
She draws in a shaky breath. “The first one is short. Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. The next is longer. Thirty or forty seconds. And the third…that’s the worst one.
Mine lasted almost a full minute.” Tears spill from her eyes.
“Nothing in my life has ever hurt so much. I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t speak. If I let her go through that… I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You’re not giving yourself up.” It’s the closest I’ve ever come to telling her what to do.
Right now, she’s too raw to see anything but the one option I refuse to entertain.
“If they take you, there won’t be anyone left who can actually stop them.
I’d try—until my last breath, I’d try—but I’m outside the system.
I didn’t survive it. You did. You’re the only one who can end it. ”
She pulls her hand away, turns back to the computer, and opens the first image—the one of her wrists. “I know. You don’t get to carry this for me, Asher. I have to do it alone.”
It doesn’t matter that she’s right. I still want to tear the whole goddamn world apart to fix it for her.
Frustration settles in my shoulders. I grit my teeth hard enough my molars scrape against one another.
This building has a gym. I could go down to the basement and punch a heavy bag for half an hour.
But that wouldn’t solve anything. So I move to the kitchen.
Pie won’t fix this either, but it’ll give me something to focus on.
By the time the pie goes into the oven, I’ve run through more than a dozen scenarios. Everything from going public with what we have now to disappearing in Costa Rica. Only one of them keeps Raine safe and has the potential to stop Ellen’s disposal. If only I thought Raine would agree.
I’m pulling the pie from the oven when my phone vibrates on the counter.
Client 7.
Raine flinches at the sound.
“It’s him.” I put the call on speaker. “You’re late.”
“You assume I’m in North America. How very mundane.”
“Stop fucking around. Northbridge. I need access to your contact. Now.” Anger prickles over the back of my neck. If I’m not careful, he’ll hang up on me. Though that would be a mistake he’d never come back from. Not with what I have on him.
“My contact only surfaces once a day. I won’t be able to reach him again until tomorrow evening.”
He says it like he’s ordering takeout or commenting on the weather. “Unacceptable. I need to speak to him right fucking now.”
“If I push, I lose access entirely, and you, Mr. Locke, are not worth that.”
“Are you? Because I highly doubt your constituents would look kindly on the Gentleman from the Great State of Georgia committing tax fraud.”
He sucks in a breath. “That is not information you were meant to know.”
“Get me in touch with Northbridge and I’ll develop a convenient case of amnesia,” I counter. “Otherwise…”
“The facility has strict protocols for their contractors. Twenty-four hour shifts, no electronic communication in or out. You could threaten everything I hold dear, Mr. Locke, including my own life, and it would not allow me to reach him before late afternoon tomorrow.”
Fuck.
“Give me a time,” I grit out.
The man’s sigh rubs my last nerve raw. “He will be off shift at four p.m. He will likely not check his messages for another thirty minutes. That has been the pattern for the past year. If it holds, I will be able to speak to him then. Not a second earlier.”
I keep my voice level, despite the rage threatening to spill over. “For the sake of your career, Senator, you better not be wrong.”
“For the sake of your life, Locke,” he replies, a cold edge to his tone, “do not threaten me again.”
The line disconnects.
I want to throw the phone across the room. I could. There are a dozen burners in the closet. But that wouldn’t solve a damn thing.
“If the man had checked his messages last night, we’d have been able to talk to Northbridge already. When this is over, I’m burning him anyway,” I mutter.
The words hang in the air, angry and impotent. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this useless before in my life.
Heating up last night’s leftovers gives me something to do, though Raine doesn’t look up from the laptop as she picks at her pasta.
We eat without talking. Every few minutes, she frowns and scribbles something else in her notebook.
I don’t ask. Don’t try to read over her shoulder.
She’ll tell me what she needs when she needs it.
“Why would they delay Ellen’s final correction?” she asks halfway through the meal, her gaze focused somewhere over my shoulder. “If they expect us to turn ourselves in at one p.m., why not schedule Ellen’s disposal for that same time?”
The answer hits me hard enough I almost drop my fork. “Because they don’t know what you have on them.”
Raine blinks once, slowly, and focuses on me. “They’ll have the log of what I copied yesterday.”
“Yes. But they don’t know what I took from the black site.
Even if they had some idea, those other three files—the Contractor Risk Exposure Analysis, the Continuity of Care Guidelines, and the Operational Standards Adherence—didn’t belong in that directory.
They want those four hours to find out what we know. ”
I can see her mind working. The way her eyes unfocus, her thumb drifting to her index finger, then her hand digging into her pocket to find the challenge coin.
“And who we might have told,” she says softly. “Tessa. Jonas. Every person you’ve ever been close to—they’ll all be at risk.”
“You’re the only person I’m close to, Raine. This life…it’s lonely.” I set the fork down, the certainty of what I’m about to offer killing the last of my appetite.
“You’ve landed somewhere.” It’s not a question. Or a demand. She pulls the coin from her pocket and presses her thumb over the three lines that vaguely resemble a Z.
“GSD set the terms. If we refuse to come in, Ellen dies. They can’t walk that back. So, you’re right. If we’re still free at five p.m. tomorrow, they’ll funnel her to disposal. And then escalate someone else.”
Raine pushes her bowl away. “They know I care about Tessa. She’ll be next.”
I close my eyes, seeing her that first night. How hard she fought for a fucking sip of chicken broth. What even that small motion took from her.
There’s only one move left that keeps her out of their hands.
“Tessa’s their next logical move. Unless they can find someone better.”
Her chair scrapes against the hardwood floor as Raine jerks to her feet and backs away from the table. ”No. Absolutely not.”
Slowly, I brace my hands flat on the wood, push up, and follow her into the living room.
I don’t touch her. Don’t get too close. Keep my voice low and steady.
“If they have me, killing Ellen doesn’t give them anything more than a body they have to explain away.
Loose ends that need to be tied up. Her house.
Her car. Credit cards. Remnants of a life.
A chance someone else could discover what they’re doing and why. ”
“Asher, they won’t send you to Coherent Path.
You’ll be in GSD custody. Their detention center.
Advanced interrogation protocols,” she manages.
“If they catch me, they’ll send me back to the black site and run enough electricity through my head to kill me instantly.
But you…” The backs of her knees hit the couch, and she doesn’t sit so much as collapse.
“They’ll hurt you. And they won’t stop until there’s nothing left of you to break. ”
I crouch down in front of her, holding her gaze long enough, a single tear threatens to spill down her cheek. “This is the only move that saves Ellen and keeps you out of their hands. I can survive pain. I won’t survive losing you.”
The city glows faintly beyond the glass to our right. People living their lives oblivious to all the agents GSD has destroyed over the years.
The tear falls, and I reach up to catch it with my thumb. “This buys us enough time for you to talk to Northbridge. And if I choose my words carefully, I can make them believe they’re in control.”