Chapter 19 #2
At nine, Avery stepped off the elevator. She wore a dark green dress, simple and professional, her hair down around her shoulders in soft waves that made my hands ache with the memory of holding them. She looked tired.
Jules Voss stood beside her, which surprised me.
Jules was paler than I remembered from the photograph Avery had once shown me on her phone. She wore jeans, a black sweater, and no lipstick. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her chin, however, was lifted. Avery’s hand was wrapped around hers.
I crossed the floor before I had fully decided to move. Avery saw me coming and did not look away.
“Callum,” she said when I reached her.
I wanted to touch her. I did not.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“No.”
It was a better answer than fine, at least.
Jules swallowed visibly. “Mr. Rowe.”
“Jules.”
Her composure cracked for a second at the sound of her name, but she held herself upright. “I’m sorry.”
“She was blackmailed,” Avery said.
Benjamin appeared at my side. “Conference room A?”
“My office,” I said.
Benjamin’s eyes flicked to me. “Your office has glass windows and is sentimentally compromised.”
“My office.”
Benjamin sighed. “Fine. But if anyone begins monologuing near the windows, I will resign into the sea.”
We went in and I closed the blinds. Benjamin closed the door behind us. Avery placed a notebook on my desk. Then Jules placed her phone beside it.
Then Avery looked at me and said, “I promised I’d explain before I did anything irreversible.”
I stared at her.
Benjamin whispered, “Oh, no.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
She lifted her chin. “We caught them.”
“Explain,” I said.
Avery opened the notebook. Her handwriting filled page after page. There were timelines and contact points. There were lists of what Jules had been asked, what she had answered, what they already knew, and what they wanted confirmed. Her notes were comprehensive.
Benjamin leaned over the desk.
After three seconds, he whispered, “Beautiful.”
Avery looked up.
He cleared his throat. “Distressing. Dangerous. But structurally pleasing.”
Jules unlocked her phone with shaking hands. “I was contacted by a woman named Becca. She called again last night.”
My attention moved to her.
“She thought I was still scared,” Jules said. Her voice trembled, but she kept going. “I was. I am. But I recorded the call.”
Jules pressed play. A woman’s voice filled my office through the small speaker, smooth and soft and poisonously professional.
“Jules, we need you to understand the position you’re in.”
Jules’s recorded voice answered. “You said if I cooperated, the photos would go away.”
“They will, provided everyone remains reasonable.”
“What does reasonable mean?”
“It means Ms. Hale should not complicate Mr. Rowe’s decision regarding Hartwell.”
Avery’s eyes stayed on mine.
Jules’s voice shook in the recording. “What happens to my pictures if she doesn’t?”
Becca sighed, as if disappointed by a child. “No one wants unnecessary exposure. But if you stop helping us, we can’t protect you.”
“Protect me from you?”
Another pause, but it was longer this time.
“From consequences.”
The recording continued. Becca asked whether Avery had discussed the deadline with me.
Whether she seemed likely to influence my decision.
Whether Jules could get Avery alone before Monday morning.
Jules, coached by Avery and probably terrified enough to deserve a medal, gave them almost nothing and made Becca say more. When the recording ended, no one moved.
“That,” Benjamin said softly, “is useful.”
I looked at Avery. She was watching me, waiting for anger. She deserved some of it, but the truth was that I was insanely proud of her.
“You should have told me before you let her take that call,” I said.
“I know.”
“You put yourself in the middle of it.”
“I was already in the middle of it.”
For a second, I saw Robert in Avery’s face. I saw the refusal to let someone else determine the course of their life.
“I’m still angry,” I added.
Avery muttered, “Fair.”
Benjamin said, “Group healing is beautiful and inefficient. May we return to burying our enemies?”
That broke the tension by exactly enough.
I picked up my laptop and turned it toward them.
Ryan’s video window was already open. He had been listening for the last thirty seconds because Benjamin had apparently patched him in without telling anyone, which I would have admonished him for later if it had not been so useful.
Ryan waved from his screen. “Hi, ladies. Excellent work. Reckless. Horrifying. Really top-tier amateur fieldcraft.”
Jules blinked. “Who the hell is that?”
“Ryan Morrison,” Benjamin said. “Our glitter-covered crowbar.”
Ryan smiled. “Digital forensics consultant, officially. Occasional rescuer of billionaires with poor window discipline.”
Avery’s face went red.
I shot a look at the screen. “Ryan.”
“What? It’s relevant.”
“It is not.”
“It is painfully relevant. But fine.” He leaned closer to his camera.
“Becca is not Becca. Becca is Melanie Arendt. Contract operator for Meridian Strategic. She’s a former political opposition researcher and a former crisis communications associate.
Currently, she’s a woman who should have used a better phone. ”
Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. “You can prove that?”
“I can point you to the doors discovery should kick down.” Ryan tapped something offscreen.
“Between Jules’s recording and what I pulled together on Rookline, Meridian, Skylark, and Lang’s people, you don’t just have extortion.
You have attempted interference with a public contract, illegal surveillance, possible conspiracy, and enough reputational C4 to make Grant Vale consider a monastery. ”
Dana entered without knocking because Dana did not believe in doors during active combat. “Did someone say reputational C4?”
Benjamin looked up. “Must you arrive at the good lines?”
“I feel them in my bones.” She took in Avery, Jules, the phone, the notebook, and Ryan on screen. “What did I miss?”
“Avery and Jules did something reckless and useful,” Benjamin said.
Dana looked at Avery. “Of course they did.”
Avery gave a tiny, apologetic shrug. Dana’s eyes dropped to the notebook. She picked it up, flipped three pages, and paused. Then, to Avery, she said, “This is good.”
Avery’s throat moved. “Thank you.”
“Don’t look touched. You still should have told someone with a legal budget before doing it.”
“I know.”
“Good.” Dana set the notebook down. “Now what?”
Ryan grinned from the laptop. “Now we make noon very unpleasant for Lang.”