26. Erik #2
"I know." Rowan puts her notebook in her bag.
Evelyn touches her shoulder briefly. "You should remember that before you make any decisions tonight."
Rowan looks at her. "I will."
Evelyn leaves.
Makari is last. He shuts down the secondary monitor and gathers his laptop. "The four-person rotation remains on Rowan tonight?"
I nod. "Yes."
Rowan looks at him sharply. "I didn't ask for an increase."
"It isn't an increase." Makari closes the laptop. "That's the existing rotation."
She relaxes a little. "Fine."
Makari looks between us. "I'll be in the hall." The door closes behind him.
Rowan doesn't move for several seconds. I pick up the credential report because doing nothing with my hands is suddenly difficult. "You think I accused Harper."
"I think you wanted to."
"No."
"You didn't need to say the word guilty." Rowan shifts the bag onto her shoulder. "You still made the case in your head."
"I made no case."
"You listed access, location, knowledge, and proximity."
I grimace. "Those are facts."
"They were facts when they belonged to Peter too." She steps around the chair. "You didn't react this way when the evidence pointed at him."
"He's my uncle."
She shoots me a look that could be triumph or disdain. Perhaps both. "That's exactly my point."
I stop.
Rowan stands near the door with her bag on her shoulder, looking tired now instead of furious.
The bruise from Tyler's hand has darkened above her elbow.
I noticed it the moment she came back to the penthouse and have spent the last several hours deliberately not asking whether it hurts because she already told me it doesn't.
She looks at me for a long moment. "You trust the people you love differently from the people I love."
My chest constricts. "That isn't fair."
"Isn't it?"
I shake my head emphatically. "Peter disappeared with evidence, and I was prepared to treat that as betrayal until he walked through the elevator."
She snorts softly. "You also believed he left a coded message because you knew him well enough to recognize that he might."
"Makari recognized it."
"Afterward." Rowan takes one step closer. "You gave Peter the possibility that he had a reason. You gave Liya the possibility that she had a reason. Harper gets a threat assessment."
I don't have an answer that improves the distinction. I could tell her I don't know Harper the same way, so I can't trust her, but that's like saying I can't trust Rowan's judgment. There's no good reply.
Rowan rubs the side of her arm, then catches herself and drops her hand. "Last night I asked whether you could leave this life. You told me what you could change."
"I meant every word."
"I know."
The quick answer stops me.
She walks past the conference table toward the windows, where the city is mostly dark beyond the glass. "That's what makes this harder."
I put down the report. "What does that mean?"
Rowan turns toward me. "It means I believe you."
I don't understand why that sounds worse than an accusation.
"I believe you sold the routes." She's blinking rapidly. "I believe you mean to close what can't be made legitimate because you want a different life."
"I do." My stomach is churning with dread now.
"I know." She presses her lips together for a second before continuing. "What I don't know is whether the life around you will ever let you have it."
"Orell doesn't get to decide that."
"This isn't only Orell."
The answer comes too quickly. "Peter?"
"Your whole world." Rowan gestures toward the table we just emptied.
"Peter disappears with evidence because he thinks he knows best. Liya moves a man across state lines without telling anyone because she thinks she knows best. You suspect my best friend because you think being close to me makes her dangerous. "
I exhale harshly. "That is not what I said."
"It is what you thought and how you reacted."
Anger comes back fast enough to make me step away from the table. "You think I should ignore the access logs because you love her?"
She takes a step forward. "No. I think you should treat her like everyone else."
"I am."
She blinks again but seems to be regaining control. "You aren't."
I look toward the closed office door. "Makari set the standard. I accepted it."
"After you had already decided proximity meant something."
"It does mean something when Orell is looking for ways to reach you."
Rowan turns away and presses two fingers to the bridge of her nose.
When she faces me again, the anger has thinned into something I understand less well.
"I mean our future." The sentence changes the argument.
She speaks more carefully now. "I mean whatever you think we're building.
I don't know whether it can ever be safe enough to exist."
I stare at her. The ring is in the bedroom safe. Last night, I was one interrupted phone call from telling her exactly what I want. Now she's standing ten feet away and telling me she may not believe the life I have been dismantling everything to build can survive the people around it.
"You know everything I've done so far to make this happen."
"I know all of it." She comes closer again, stopping on the other side of the table. "This isn't about whether you have changed anything."
I frown, genuinely confused. "Then what is it about?"
"Whether your life changes with you."
I stay where I am because she wants an answer nobody can prove in advance. "I can't promise nobody will ever lie to us again."
"I didn't ask for that." Rowan grips the strap of her bag instead of reaching for me.
"I can't promise Orell is the last enemy."
"I know that too."
"I've shown you what I've done." The frustration in my voice is impossible to hide now. "I don't know what else you want me to prove."
Rowan looks down for a few seconds before crossing to the chair where she left her coat. She slips it on and picks up her bag again. "I think I need two days."
Every instinct I have rejects the sentence before she finishes it, but I manage to ask a question instead. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to Harper's."
The name makes every concern from the last hour return at once, and I open my mouth again to protest.
Rowan catches it. "Don't do that."
"I was going to ask about your protection detail."
She watches me for another second before answering, and her skepticism is clear. "Two men and a car. I know they're there, and I want them there. I'm not disappearing."
That should help more than it does. "I can increase the number."
"I don't want four people sitting in Harper's hallway."
I'm tense but trying to sound calm and reasonable. "Two men aren't enough if Rahil makes a direct move."
Rowan considers that instead of dismissing it. "Four can rotate through two at a time, same as always if Makari was telling me the truth. Two with me, two off shift."
I run through Harper's apartment entrance, the street approach, and the building garage. The arrangement works. "Agreed."
She relaxes marginally and walks to the office door, then stops with her hand near the handle. "I'm not ending this tonight."
I hear the qualification before the reassurance. "I won't beg you to believe in me."
Rowan turns back. "I didn't ask you to beg."
"I know."
"That isn't what I've ever wanted from you."
I look at her coat, her bag, and the bruise on her arm. Everything I want to say sounds like another argument for staying. "I know." It's hard to not say anything more or continue defending myself when all I want to do is keep her safe.
She waits another second before opening the door. Makari is in the hallway with his laptop under one arm. He takes one look at both of us and stops.
"Rowan is going to Harper's for two days." I keep the instruction limited to what she already agreed to. "The detail stays with her. Two visible at a time, four on rotation."
Makari looks at Rowan rather than me. "Does that work for you?"
"Yes." She adjusts her bag. "I want the lead operator's number too."
He takes out his phone. "I'll send it before you reach the elevator."
"Thank you." Rowan steps past him and walks to the elevator without looking back.