13. Dante
Dante
Ihaven't slept.
I washed the mug she left at midnight, dried it, and put it back in the cabinet next to the box of Barry's. Then I stood at the counter for ten minutes with my hands braced on the edge, the kitchen dark around me and the taste of tea still caught in the back of my throat.
The Wickenden Street property. I know that address.
The permits on Federal Hill. I know that firm.
She traced a chain she built from public records, and every link she named connects to infrastructure Marco manages for my father.
The Wickenden property is one of Luca's messes, formalized through a shell company after my cousin turned a simple acquisition into a situation that required lawyers.
She found the cleanup. She mapped the pattern from the residue outward, from the bottom up.
The transfers, addresses, and filings gave her enough without the names on top.
Since she was fourteen.
I shower. The water is too hot, and I let it burn.
Cole comes down at seven. Practice isn't until ten. My coffee is already in my hand. He pours his with the easy grace of a man who slept eight hours.
"She get home okay?" he asks.
"I told her to lock her door."
"You texted her?"
"Yes."
His hand slows on the mug. "How was she? Last night?"
"We talked." I set my mug down. "She got a phone call while she was here. Her hands were shaking after. She said it was spam."
Cole's mug pauses midway to his mouth. "Shaking how?"
"A tremor. Visible. She tried to hide it."
He sets the mug down. "She told you spam?"
"She told me spam. I knew better."
Cole nods, slow. "She handles it," he says, flat. "She always handles it."
"The Rylan piece," I say. "The one she ran last week about the defensive gap."
"What about it?"
"She was right about the trend. Wrong about the cause. I told her."
"How'd she take that?"
"About as well as you'd expect."
The corner of his mouth lifts. "You told Maya Maddox her analysis was wrong and you're still breathing?"
"Barely."
He drinks his coffee. The kitchen goes quiet, and I keep what I need to keep. The file. The way she looked at me when she said the word equal. Cole is carrying enough, and his grip is already too hard around the mug.
I move through practice, film room, and the afternoon seminar with my body doing what it knows. Addison pulls me aside after to talk about the Eastbrook series. I give him thirty minutes of focused tactical analysis while a file in a woman's notebook could end everything this program has built.
Class lets out at 3:50. My phone buzzes.
Cole.
Have you heard from Maya today?
No. Why would I?
She's not answering my texts. I've sent three since this morning.
Maybe she's busy. She runs a newspaper.
She always answers me. Even when she's busy. Even if it's just a thumbs up. She always answers.
I set my phone down. Pick it up.
And?
And last night she got a phone call that made her hands shake and then she went back to her apartment with no heat and now she's not answering and I'm stuck in this fucking meeting with the athletic director for another two hours.
Cole is in a meeting. Maya isn't answering. I'm the only one available.
I look at the message until the screen starts to dim, then press my thumb hard enough against the edge of the phone to bite into skin.
The woman being threatened by silent phone calls is the same woman holding enough information to put my family in a federal courtroom. She is behind one door, and I am already moving toward it.
I'll check on her.
Thank you, D.
My thumb stays over the screen for a beat longer than it should.
Her building is on Thayer Street, four blocks from campus. Third floor. 3C. I've been there exactly twice. Both times with Cole. Both times standing in the doorway while he dropped off food she forgot to eat.
The walk takes eight minutes. I take the stairs. I knock.
Silence. I knock harder.
"Maya."
Footsteps. Light, quick. She stops on the other side, and I can feel her looking at me through the peephole.
"Cole sent me," I say.
The deadbolt turns. The door opens six inches with the chain still latched.
Her face appears in the gap, framed by the brass line and the dark green collar of her sweatshirt.
Her hair is down. Her eyes are tired, but the set of her mouth is the same one she wore last night while listing dates and case numbers from my couch.
"Cole sent you," she repeats, flat.
"You're not answering his texts. He's worried about the phone call."
Her jaw tightens. "You told him."
"He asked how you were."
"So now he's worried, and you're here, and I'm standing in my doorway explaining myself to a man I didn't invite."
"I'm checking on you. For Cole. That's it."
Six inches of open door between us. The chain is brass and old.
"Your heat fixed?" I ask.
"The landlord came."
"Good."
"Was there something else?"
"No."
She starts to close the door.
"Someone is calling you and making your hands shake," I say. "You're also carrying enough to put my family in a federal courtroom. I need to know which one of those things is going to get you hurt first, and I'd rather have that conversation inside."
The door stops. "Are you asking because you're worried about your family, or because you're worried about me?"
"Both."
"At least you're honest." She reaches up and unhooks the chain. The door opens.
The apartment is small. Clean. A studio, the kitchen counter to the left of the door, the couch and rug in the center, the bed visible beyond them with the nightstand and lamp glowing at its edge.
Books on the shelf, alphabetized. Laptop on the desk, closed.
Blanket folded on the couch with the edges aligned.
Single mug in the drying rack. The walls are bare.
She closes the door behind me and leans against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed.
"The file is secure. The calls are handled. You don't get to manage either."
"How many calls?"
"You're here for something else."
"How many, Maya."
"Three."
"Three calls. Same number?"
"Same area code. I'm handling it."
"You're handling it by sitting in your apartment alone with the chain on."
"I'm handling it by staying upright. By going to class. Filing stories. Staying away from Cole. Refusing to let some anonymous caller turn my life into a crisis that other people get to manage for me."
"And if the calls escalate?"
"Then I'll handle that too."
"You keep saying handle. What does that actually look like? Because from where I'm standing, handling it looks like deleting call logs and shaking in the dark."
Her chin lifts. "From where you're standing.
You've been standing in my apartment for three minutes and you think you know what handling looks like for me.
It looks like going to class. Filing stories.
Sitting on your couch while your brother's shell company names live in my head and a phone number I can't trace keeps lighting up my screen.
It looks like doing everything I've always done while something tries to take it from me. "
"Who has the number?"
"Everyone has the number. It's my professional line. It's on my Chronicle byline."
"So anyone could be calling."
"Anyone could be calling."
"But you have a theory."
She holds my gaze until the refrigerator cycles on behind her. "I have a theory," she says.
"A theory you're keeping in the same drawer as my family's federal case numbers."
"A theory I'm keeping until I have enough to act on it. That's what journalists do. We don't move until the sourcing is solid."
"And in the meantime you sit here alone with the deadbolt on."
"In the meantime I sit here alone with the deadbolt on. Because that's what I've always done."
There are three feet between us.
She stands there in a sweatshirt that hangs past her wrists, her hair loose around her shoulders. No press badge. No Chronicle lanyard. Her arms are crossed hard enough to drag the sleeves over her knuckles.
My chest constricts until the breath has to fight its way in. Office. Kitchen. Three feet of space now, and my hand still wants the back of her neck.
"You've got a vocabulary for what you think I am," she says.
"Tourist. Parasite. Last night you told me I was everywhere, like I stumbled into your life without understanding what I was walking into.
" She holds my gaze. "You've known me for six years, Dante.
You've never once asked me a real question.
Everything you think you know about me is an assumption you made when I was fourteen. "
"I never asked."
The admission leaves my mouth before I can stop it.
She uncrosses her arms. Her hands drop to her sides. "Last night I said you were scared of the word equal."
"I am."
"Good." She tilts her head. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know. The man who has a play for everything. Who handles Marco and his father and a hockey program and a secret relationship without breaking a sweat. You don't know."
"I don't know what to do about you. That's the problem."
"I'm the problem."
"You've always been the problem."
"Because I see too much."
"Because you see everything and you never look away. You stand there with your notebook and your chin up, and I can't get past the look in your eyes when you've already figured out what I'm going to do next."
"Maybe I have."
"You think you know me."
"I think I've been watching you since I was fourteen."
The back of my neck goes rigid. The same year I looked at her in a hallway and couldn't stop looking. Fourteen. Her notebook. My mouth. The word I gave her.
"I think I know when you're angry and when you're performing angry.
I think I know the difference between your press room face and the face you made in your kitchen when your hand stopped an inch from my jaw.
" She takes a step toward me. "I think you came here because Cole asked, and I think you stayed because you wanted to.
I think you've been looking for a reason to stand in my apartment for weeks and the phone calls gave you one. "
My jaw hardens.