17. Leah
SEVENTEEN
LEAH
We were standing on the sidewalk outside the safehouse with two Bureau cars at the curb and ten minutes past the time we should have left.
Julian was leaning against the back fender of his ride. Jacket over his shoulder. The grin small at the corner of his mouth. The morning sun was on his sandy hair, and he had the look of a man going home to his own bed for the first time in three days.
I was at the open driver's door of mine.
I had been there for ten minutes.
"You finally get to sleep in a bed that isn't a mattress and a half," he said. "That is the only positive of all of this, and I am holding it close."
I did not laugh.
He noticed. He pushed off the fender. He crossed the sidewalk to me.
"What."
"I don't like this, Julian."
"The separate cars? Agreed. Ride with me."
"I'm serious. Conrad's passport flagging at an airfield is too clean. He has been running an operation for this long without making a mistake. Suddenly, he gets scanned at a private airfield? It’s too much of a coincidence."
"Your people confirmed it. Two sources."
"I know."
He stepped closer. The grin was gone. He lifted his hand and put it against the line of my jaw, the pad of his thumb on my cheekbone.
"Hey. It is over. The Bureau is on it. Conrad is running. I am safe."
I wanted to believe him.
I looked at his face — the face that had been on my pillow, eyes still heavy with sleep at 6:00 a.m. and on my side with a coffee cup at 7:00 a.m.
He kissed me.
Soft. Unhurried. His thumb stroked my cheekbone. I kissed him back and let it linger because something low and quiet in my chest was telling me to hold on.
He pulled back.
I reached into my bag and handed him his phone. He took it. He powered it on. The screen lit and the apps loaded.
"I'll call you tonight."
"On the secure line."
"On whatever line you want. I just want to hear your voice."
He leaned in and kissed my forehead. He got in the car. The door closed. The car pulled away from the curb and turned at the end of the block and was gone.
I was still standing there when Torres came out.
He had his jacket on, his bag over his shoulder and his keys in his hand. He stopped at the bottom of the safehouse steps. He saw my face.
He crossed to my car. He leaned against the front fender beside me. He did not say anything for a second.
"You don't look like a woman who believes the all-clear, Cal."
"I don't."
"Tell me."
"The passport flag is wrong, Rafael. Conrad has spent twelve years moving money through correspondent banks in three countries without leaving a single document a forensic team could subpoena.
He doesn't get scanned at a private airfield in the middle of his own operation. He doesn't make that kind of mistake."
I turned my keys in my hand.
"It's a decoy. He's still here."
Torres looked at the sidewalk.
He turned his head and looked at me.
"Then go with your gut. Call Harlow. Tell her what you think."
"My gut put you in a parking garage for eleven minutes, Rafael."
"Your gut trusted a witness who turned out to be a professional liar. That is not a gut failure. That is a bad break, and you have been punishing yourself for three years because you will not see the difference."
I did not answer.
He was looking at me — patient and even with no anger anywhere in it.
"You trust this man."
"Yes."
"Then trust it."
"And if I'm wrong again."
"Then you are wrong. But at least you were honest."
I looked at the sidewalk between our feet. A flyer for a missing cat had been taped to the lamppost behind him. The cat in the photograph had been missing for two weeks.
"Rafael."
"I know."
"This is goodbye. Not just the assignment. Us. Whatever you came up here hoping was still open between us."
He nodded slowly.
"I knew when I saw the bed."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I came here to make sure you were okay. You are."
He was quiet for a second.
"He is good for you. Different from what I would have picked. But good."
He lifted his right hand. He set the heel of it against the line of my jaw. He let his hand rest there for two seconds. He dropped it.
"Be brave, Leah. Not careful. Brave."
He turned, crossed to his car and got in. He pulled away from the curb at the end of the block and turned. Two men driving away from me in the same hour for entirely different reasons.
I sat in my car for a minute with my hands on the wheel and the keys on my thigh and my breath uneven.
I picked up my phone. I dialed Harlow.
She answered on the second ring.
"Calder."
"The passport flag is wrong. It is too clean. It doesn’t seem like a mistake Conrad would make. I think it is a decoy. I think he is still in the city."
"On what basis."
"Operational pattern. Twelve years of no traceable mistakes. He does not make this one now."
She was quiet for a second.
"Calder. I had three analysts on the verification before I made the call this morning. Two independent sources confirmed the passport scan. The flight manifest checks. The plane is wheels-up and we have eyes on the destination airport in Geneva. The intelligence is clean."
"I'm telling you it doesn't feel right."
"I appreciate that. The Bureau's decision stands. The threat is downgraded. Cross is cleared to return home. You are cleared to file the check-in protocol and report to my office in the morning."
I sat with the phone against my cheek.
I had been here before.
Three years ago I had sat in a black sedan outside a federal courthouse with a phone against my cheek and I had told my handler that the witness was solid and we should move on her information.
My handler had told me to wait for verification.
I had told him my gut said now. I had been wrong, and Torres had bled on a parking-garage floor for eleven minutes, and I had spent three years rebuilding a career on a single principle.
Follow the protocol. Not your gut.
"Understood, ma'am."
"Get some sleep, Calder."
She hung up.
I put the phone on the passenger seat. I started the car. I drove home.
The apartment remained exactly as I'd left it.
The plant on the windowsill had a new leaf at the top of the stem.
The dish drainer still had the bowl from Monday morning standing upside down on the rack.
The lamp by the couch was on because I had left it on when I had walked out at nine on Tuesday and not been back since.
I changed. I pulled on sweats and a soft long-sleeve. I took my hair down out of the knot for the first time all day. I crossed to the kitchen and pulled my mother's chicken soup out of the freezer and started it warming on low.
A knock at the door.
I opened it.
Mrs. Alvarez was in her housecoat with her glasses up in her hair and a glass dish in her hands.
"Mija."
"Mrs. Alvarez."
"You have been gone."
"Work travel."
"Mhm. Rice and beans. From dinner. My grandson — "
"Canceled."
"He is the worst grandson in the United States of America."
I took the dish.
She squinted at me. She did not let go of her end of the dish for a second. She tilted her head a quarter-inch.
"You look different."
"Long week."
"You look — " She frowned. "You look glowing, mija. You have been with someone."
"There is no one, Mrs. Alvarez."
"Mhm."
She let go of the dish. She patted my forearm.
"I am not going to ask. I am going to wait. You will tell me when you are ready."
She turned back into her apartment. The door closed.
I put the rice and beans in the fridge, next to the unfinished lasagna, my mother's soup, and the grapes I'd been ignoring for nine days.
I ate at the counter. I rinsed the bowl. I put it on the rack beside the other one.
I sat at the counter with my phone face down on the marble.
I lasted two hours.
I told myself it was the check-in. The Bureau check-in was periodic, scheduled, and professional. It was in the protocol. That's what I followed.
I picked up a bottle of wine on the way out.
He opened the door in sweatpants, a soft gray T-shirt, bare feet, and wet hair from the shower. He looked at me. He looked at the wine in my hand.
"You lasted two hours."
"It's a security check."
"You're holding a bottle of wine, Leah."
I looked at my hand.
I was indeed holding a bottle of wine.
"It's a security check with wine."
He pulled me inside. He closed the door. He took the wine out of my hand and set it on the kitchen counter.
I began the sweep.
I crossed to the front windows. I checked the latches. I crossed to the bedroom. I checked the fire-escape lock. I crossed to the kitchen. I tested the back door. I came back into the living room.
He was leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed and the small private grin at the corner of his mouth.
"Done?"
"Done."
I crossed to him.
He was on me before I had said another word. His hands on my waist. He lifted me onto the counter. My legs came up around his hips. His mouth was on my neck before my back hit the marble.
I tipped my head back. I gripped the edge of the counter.
"I am supposed to be checking the perimeter."
"Check it later."
"Julian."
"Leah."
He'd whispered it there against my jaw last night, the night before that, and every night stretching back, always dismantling the story I'd told myself about the woman who walked into his apartment.
I stopped pretending I had come here for the perimeter.
We stayed for an hour and a half.
Afterwards, we were on the couch. The bottle of wine was open on the coffee table. My back was against his chest. His arms were around me. His chin was on my shoulder. The vinyl on the turntable was Bill Evans.
I felt his heartbeat against my spine.
"Stay tonight."
"I can't, Julian. I have to file the check-in and be at Harlow's office in the morning."
"That's not a no."
"It's not a yes either."
He laughed against my shoulder.
We talked. Not about the case. About his mother. About my father. About the fact that I had never shown anyone my apartment.
"I want to see it."
"There's nothing to see."
"There's you."
I put my wine down on the coffee table. I turned around in his lap. I kissed him. Long and slow. It made leaving harder.
I made myself leave.
He caught my hand at the door. He pulled me back. One more kiss.
"Lock the door behind me."
"Yes, Agent Calder."
The corner of my mouth moved. Almost.
I drove home. I pulled into the garage. I came up to the apartment. I put my shoes by the door. I crossed to the bedroom.
I pulled on his shirt. I took it from the safehouse. I had been wearing it at his apartment. I got into bed. I called him on the secure line.
We talked for another hour.
I fell asleep with the phone on the pillow beside me.
So did he.
Two people in separate apartments breathing into the same silence.
The phone rang at 1:40 a.m.
Different ringtone. The Bureau channel.
I sat up. The other phone was still on the pillow. The line was already dead sometime during the night.
I picked up the Bureau phone.
"Harlow."
"Calder. The passport flag was a decoy. I have just had analysts confirm. Someone used Conrad's known passport at the airfield this morning to trigger our surveillance. Conrad did not board the plane. He was never on the flight. He has been in the city the entire time."
I was already on my feet.
"Bureau surveillance just picked up activity at a shell company address six blocks from Cross's apartment. We are mobilizing a field team."
"ETA."
"Forty-five minutes to assemble and deploy."
I had my jeans on. I was pulling a sweater over the T-shirt. I had shoes on my feet.
"Harlow."
"Forty-five minutes, Calder. We do this right. Bureau protocol. We are not going to lose him to a botched insertion."
I was at the door.
I had my keys in my hand. The other phone was on the bed with Julian's breathing still on the line.
Forty-five minutes of Bureau protocol while Conrad sat in a building six blocks from Julian's apartment.
I had followed the protocol.
I had not called.
I had chosen the rules because the last time I had chosen my gut, Torres had bled for eleven minutes on a parking-garage floor.
I had let two hours pass with my phone on the kitchen counter while the man I loved was sleeping with his door locked and a man with a rifle was six blocks from his window.
The gut had been right.
I was at the elevator. I hit the button. I dialed.
It rang.
It rang.
It rang.
He did not pick up.