“Navarro here, ma’am.”
“Na—Where the hell are you, Navarro?”
“Rather not say, ma’am.”
A pause. “Excuse me?”
“I heard about Breadthwaite.”
“Random accident.”
“You don’t truly believe that, do you?”
Another pause. “It doesn’t matter. I told you to lay low, not to fall off the grid entirely. I can’t have you disappear—”
“I don’t know who to trust. I’m sorry, it’s not—”
“You can trust me. Now, goddamn it, what is your location?”
A pause while Clay decided how best to say—or not say—what he was thinking. “You heard anything about my whereabouts?”
“No, I haven’t, Navarro.”
“Just wanted to make sure I haven’t been compromised.”
“Not here, at least.”
“Okay. Good.” His body loosened, the burning in his gut lessened, and his headache eased off just a notch.
“I should tell you about a couple of issues we’ve had here, Navarro.”
At the dark tone of his boss’s voice, Clay waited, breath held.
“You know the assistant U.S. attorney hired to the case?”
“Hecker, yeah.”
“His family’s been threatened. Locals too, and… Well, everyone involved.”
“What’s that mean for me?”
She breathed a big, exhausted-sounding sigh before speaking to him, fast and low. “Are you safe where you are?”
“Believe so, ma’am.”
“Anyone know who you are?”
“No.”
“Any sign of them?”
He thought about the bikes he’d heard, all but certain they’d been in his head. “None.”
Another sigh, slightly lighter this time, and he could picture her doing that weird chin raise she did when circumstances got rough.
“All right. Good. You want to tell me where you are?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m…I’m safe. I’m alive. I’ll check in next week. In the meantime—”
