4. Farrow #2
Damn him.
Wiley looked from my phone to my face. “What?”
“He’s learning.”
“Fletcher?”
“Yes, and don’t tell him I said that.”
“I’m a journalist,” Wiley said.
“I know. That’s why I’m threatening you in advance.”
“What did he say?”
I put the phone away. “He said not to take you home.”
“I wanted my notes.”
“I remember.”
“I still want them.”
“You’ll handle the delay.”
Wiley slowed near a storefront. I followed his gaze.
It was a small café, narrow and brick-walled, with steamed-up windows.
“No,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to suggest going in.”
“I was considering coffee. It’s public.”
“It’s predictable.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You looked at it like an apology.”
He turned to me. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve been here before and have feelings about it.”
His expression shifted slightly.
“Source?” I asked.
“No.”
“Wiley.”
“No,” he said again. Then, after a beat, “Not exactly.”
I waited.
He stared through the steamed-up glass. “A woman who worked records for a contractor connected to one of the shell companies met me there twice. She was scared and a little angry. She had a kid at Tufts and a brother with a gambling problem.”
“What happened?”
“She gave me enough to identify a pattern. Not enough to prove it.”
“And then?”
“She stopped coming.”
I looked at the café again, peering through the steamed-up windows. It had one front door and a back hallway that probably led to the bathrooms and a kitchen exit. Inside there were four tables, two of them occupied.
“Is she inside?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
His answer took half a second too long.
“Wiley.”
“I don’t know.”
I should have kept us moving. Dane would have kept us moving. He would have been right.
Wiley wasn’t looking at the café like a man chasing caffeine. He was looking at it like the past had left something on the table.
I stepped closer, enough that my shoulder almost touched his. “We do not enter because of a feeling.”
“I know.”
“We do not enter because you regret something, and we absolutely do not enter because an unknown number sent you a fortune cookie with menace.”
He exhaled. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
“Yes, you were.”
He looked at me, and his jaw loosened. “She had a son.”
“I heard you.”
“No,” he said. “You only heard the facts.”
A bus groaned past us. Someone behind us laughed loudly at something on their phone.
“She had a son,” Wiley said again. “And I knew she was scared, but I let her decide what the risk meant. I give people the dignity of their own choices, and then later I sit in my kitchen at two in the morning wondering whether dignity is just abandonment in fancy clothes.”
I looked at the café and said, “You didn’t make her talk.”
“No.”
“But you still think you might have been complicit in putting her in danger.”
A woman in a green scarf got up from a table inside.
I watched.
She didn’t look at us. She left cash on the table, wrapped her scarf tighter, and walked toward the back instead of the front door.
Wiley’s posture changed beside me. He didn’t speak.
“We’re leaving,” I said.
“But—“
“We’re leaving now.”
He followed, but barely. Every part of him pulled toward that café, except his feet.
I turned us at the corner. We cut into a narrower side street where the wind dropped and the smell of old beer came out of a service alley behind a bar. A delivery guy hauled crates through a propped door, earbuds in.
I took out my phone and sent Dane the café‘s location. This time it was an exact address.
Farrow: Possible source-adjacent sighting. Unknown relevance. Moving Wiley away.
Dane replied almost immediately.
Fletcher: Stay away from the shop.
I snorted.
Wiley looked at me. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“It was a little more than that.”
I shook my head. “Dane told me to do the thing I’m already doing.”
“Does he do that often?”
“I’m beginning to suspect it’s how he flirts.”
Wiley stopped walking for half a step.
“Farrow—“
“Don’t you start.”
“Does your history with Dane affect the job?” he asked.
“Everyone is suddenly very interested in my history with Dane.”
“I’m not everyone.”
“No, you’re worse than the rest. You take notes.”
My phone buzzed again.
Eamon: Interim location cleared. Beacon Hill. Address follows. No direct route. Dane/Cabot being moved separately.
I read the address twice. It was a Beacon Hill private residence. It would be a good street with miserable parking.
“We have somewhere to go,” I said.
We headed north by a route I wouldn’t have chosen on any other day, which was precisely why I chose it. The streets we walked along bent around old property lines. We passed a man in a Bruins jacket telling someone on speakerphone that the whole defensive line had been garbage since October.
After two blocks, Wiley said, “Samuel teaches landscape architecture.”
I glanced at him. “Beauty with plants.”
“At Northeastern. He says cities tell you what they value by what they make easy.”
“What does Boston make easy?”
“Getting lost while convinced you know exactly where you are.”
I smiled. “That feels personal.”
“It is. He loves this city, but he also threatens to leave it every February.”
“As any sane person should.”
“He’ll want to come,” Wiley said.
“To the safehouse?”
“To wherever I am.”
We climbed toward Beacon Hill. The sidewalks changed to brick. Gas lamps burned behind glass. The houses stood close and dignified, with black shutters and polished brass.
My phone buzzed.
Fletcher: Five minutes out from destination with Cabot. Report status.
I checked the street ahead before answering.
Farrow: Wiley intact. Moving to address.
Fletcher: Do not arrive from south.
I looked up at the street sign ahead.
South would have been the prettier approach. It would also be the obvious direction.
Damn him again.
Farrow: Already turning.
Dane: Good.
We turned east, cutting around the block instead of taking the direct climb. The hill worked our lungs. Wiley’s breath shortened, but he didn’t complain.
At the corner, he slowed down . I followed his gaze.
A black SUV sat halfway down the next street. It could belong to The Guardians, but it could be something else.
I put a hand lightly against Wiley’s back and guided him past the corner.
“Keep walking,” I said.
“They might be watching.”
“I know.”
We moved one block over, then another. I sent the vehicle's location to Dane and Eamon, with make, model, and plate.
This time Dane didn’t text back.
The safehouse address sat on a narrow street with brick townhouses pressed shoulder to shoulder and window boxes gone dormant for the season. I didn’t see any obvious security cameras.
The front door was dark green with a brass knocker polished by use. A contractor I didn’t know opened before I knocked. They’d been watching us.
“Farrow,” he said.
I didn’t offer my hand. “Name?”
“Reed.”
“Who cleared you?”
“Michael McCabe.”
“Favorite thing about him?”
Reed blinked once. “Terrifying spreadsheets.”
The answer was good enough. I brought Wiley inside.
The entrance smelled faintly of lemon oil and old wood. Ahead was a staircase leading up and a narrow hallway to the left.
Wiley stopped just inside the door. He was looking at Dane, who stood at the far end of the hall. Cabot was behind him, pale but composed.
Dane’s dark hair was perfectly in place. His black overshirt sat cleanly over his shoulders. He checked me out immediately, but I didn’t see the want I’d noted in the bar.
Something about that was hotter.
Wiley spoke beside me. “We got a text.”
“So I heard,” Dane said.
Cabot moved ahead of Dane. “What text?”
“Unknown number. It said I’m asking the wrong family,” Wiley said.
“The wrong family,” Cabot said. It was a statement, not a question.
Dane turned slightly. “Cabot?”
“Whoever sent that wants Wiley to look anywhere but at the Harcourts. That means there’s something about them they don’t want him to find.”
“Do you know what it is?” Wiley asked.
“No, but I know who might. There was a cousin nobody wanted me to write about. I assumed it was the usual reasons: black sheep or addiction.” Cabot looked at Wiley. “Now I don’t think it was.”