He hung up. Set the phone down. Picked up the coffee.
"DeMarcus Roberts." He took a sip, leaned against the counter. "Runs the Tampa field office for DEA. He's been tracking some of Vance's distribution network independently, and there's overlap with what we pulled from Costa's records."
"Anything we can use?"
"Not yet. His people intercepted some communication that suggests Costa made contact with someone outside his knowncircle. But they can't confirm location or intent." Jake took a sip, leaned against the counter. "He's going to sit on it through the weekend, see if anything shakes loose, then brief us Monday or Tuesday."
Emily processed that. The prosecutor in her was already running the information through evidentiary filters, assessing what could be documented, what would hold up, where the chain of custody began. But that part of her brain was operating at reduced capacity this morning, because the rest of her was occupied with the man in front of her, the coffee in her hands, and the dog now pressing against both their legs like he was trying to merge them into a single entity.
"Ranger." Jake nudged the dog gently with his knee. "Personal space."
Ranger ignored this completely.
"He has terrible boundaries." Jake shook his head at the dog.
"He learned from the best."
Jake's laugh was barely a sound, more a shift in his expression and a breath released through his nose. He set his mug down and looked at her.
"You sleep okay?"
"Better than I have in months."
"The couch isn't bad."
"The couch is fine." She said. "The company's better."
He didn't respond right away. His eyes held hers with that attention she was learning to recognize as the truest version of him, the version that existed when he wasn't charming or performing or reading a room. This was Jake seeing her. Letting her see him back.
"I'm glad you stayed." His voice was low enough that it felt private, even in his own kitchen.
"I'm glad you asked."
The kitchen held nothing but Ranger's breathing and the refrigerator's hum and the branch tapping the window. Emily stood in the morning light in yesterday's clothes with coffee she hadn't made in a kitchen she was memorizing, and she thought:I could do this. Every Sunday. I could do this and not get tired of it and not need it to be anything other than what it is.
The thought didn't scare her.
That's what scared her.
Monday arrivedwith the cruelty of a day that knew what it was carrying.
Emily had spent Sunday afternoon back at her apartment, reviewing case notes and pretending she wasn't counting the hours until she saw Jake again. Claire had come by, read her face in two seconds flat, and said, "Oh, you've got it bad," and Emily hadn't bothered denying it.
Now she was sitting in a conference room on the fourth floor of the federal building, and the warmth of Jake's kitchen felt like it belonged to a different century.
The room was designed for exactly this kind of meeting. Long table, no windows, overhead lighting that made everyone look slightly ill. The kind of room where careers were discussed by people who'd never risked theirs.
Ray sat at the head of the table because it was his division and his obligation. He was wearing the face Emily had only seen once before, during a congressional inquiry into their office's handling of a cartel case. Composed, attentive, giving nothing away. The face of a man who understood that the next hour would determine whether his judgment was questioned or confirmed.
Jake sat to Ray's left. He'd dressed for this, which told Emily he understood the terrain. Navy suit, no tie, collar open. Theoperator casual was gone, replaced by a version of himself that saidI belong in rooms like this, and I know the rules, and I'm choosing to play by them.His hands rested on the table, still and open, the posture of a man who had nothing to hide and no interest in proving it.
Emily sat across from Jake. She'd chosen her best courtroom suit, charcoal, and the silk blouse Claire called her "don't test me" shirt. She'd put her hair up. Applied the minimal makeup that was its own kind of armor.
She was terrified.
Not of the meeting. She'd sat through depositions with organized crime attorneys who'd threatened her career over lunch. She'd argued motions before judges who enjoyed making young prosecutors sweat. She knew how institutional scrutiny worked, understood the choreography of it, the way power expressed itself through procedure and implication.
She was terrified because the person being scrutinized was the man whose house she'd woken up in yesterday, whose blanket she'd slept under, whose dog had guarded her feet all night, and she couldn't protect him without proving the point that he needed protecting.
