Chapter 3 #2
"Tyler died trying to expose this," I say quietly. "If I back down because it's dangerous, what does that say about his sacrifice?"
"That you're smart enough to survive." She leans forward. "Tyler's gone, Grant. He doesn't need you to throw your life away proving a point."
"Maybe not. But I need to."
The food arrives. We eat in silence, the weight of everything unsaid sitting between us like a third person at the table. When we're done, I pay the bill and we head back to the truck.
We're ten miles from Albuquerque when Rainey's phone buzzes. She checks the screen, and the color drains from her face.
"What?" I ask.
She doesn't answer, just hands me the phone. It's a text message. Photo attachment. Her van. Windows smashed, door hanging open, equipment scattered across the ground.
The message below reads:
Stop asking questions.
We drive straight to the fairgrounds lot where she left the van. The damage is worse in person. Every window shattered. Her cameras, one of her laptops, her life's work pulled out and smashed against the pavement. Someone took a crowbar or bat to everything she owns and destroyed it systematically.
Rainey stands there looking at the wreckage, and for the first time since I met her, she looks small. Vulnerable. Like the armor she wears just cracked and she doesn't know how to put it back together.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"It's fine." Her voice is flat. "It's just equipment. Just things."
But we both know it's more than that. It's her home. Her livelihood. Her safety.
"Do you have backups? Of the photos, the evidence?"
"Cloud storage. Everything's saved." She picks up a smashed lens, turns it over in her hands. "But the originals. The high-res files on the hard drives. Those are gone."
"We still have the flash drive. The photos you sent me. That's enough."
"Is it?" She drops the lens, looks at me. "They found me, Grant. Whoever's behind this knows I have evidence, probably knows I'm helping you, and they just made it very clear what happens to people who don't back down."
"All the more reason to finish this."
"Or all the more reason to run." But she doesn't move. Just stands there in the wreckage of her life, trying to decide which way to fall.
I don't blame her if she chooses to leave. This isn't her fight. She's already lost enough. If she walks away now, goes somewhere safe, waits for this to blow over, nobody would fault her for it.
But I hope she doesn't. Because I'm realizing I don't want to do this alone. Don't want to face down whatever's coming without someone who understands why it matters.
"I can't promise you'll be safe if you stay," I tell her. "Can't promise we'll win. Can't even promise we'll survive." I meet her eyes. "But I can promise I'll do everything I can to make Tyler's death mean something. To stop whoever's doing this from hurting anyone else."
She's quiet for a long time. Then she takes a breath, straightens her shoulders, and nods.
"I'm in," she says. "All the way to the end."
"You sure?"
"No. But I'm doing it anyway."
We spend the next hour salvaging what we can from the van. It's not much. A few pieces of equipment that survived. Some clothes. Her backup camera, which she had with her in my truck.
The van itself is totaled. Windows broken, interior trashed, tires slashed. Even if she could fix it, it's not safe to stay in.
"You'll stay with me," I say.
"I don't need charity."
"It's not charity. It's strategy. Whoever did this knows where your van was. They don't know where I'm staying." I close the van doors, what's left of them. "Plus, you'll need somewhere to work. Somewhere to sleep that isn't a fairgrounds crime scene."
She considers this. "Where are you staying?"
"Motel outside town. Not fancy, but it's clean and the doors lock."
"Fine. But I'm paying my share."
"Deal."
First stop is a Best Buy off the highway.
Rainey spends forty minutes picking out a replacement laptop with enough processing power to handle her photo files, the kind of machine that makes the clerk's eyebrows climb when she rattles off the specs she needs.
I reach for my wallet and she shuts me down with a look.
"My equipment. My purchase."
"You just lost everything you own."
"And I'll rebuild it the same way I built it the first time. On my own." She hands the clerk her card. "But thank you."
We get back in my truck, go and check the van one more time then leave it behind. As we drive away, I catch Rainey looking back at the wreckage in the side mirror.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Ask me again when this is over."
Fair enough.
My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number.
You've been warned. Walk away while you still can.
I show it to Rainey. She reads it, and something hardens in her expression.
"Send them a message back," she says.
"What should I say?"
"Tell them to go to hell."
I type exactly that. Hit send. And catch Rainey's reflection in the windshield, jaw set, eyes hard, looking like a woman who just lost everything she owned and decided to make someone answer for it.
Tyler would have liked her.