“Start with what you know,” I said. “Then add what you think. Just keep it honest.”
He chewed on that for a minute, then picked up the pen.
I said, “You want me and Ransom to step out? Give you some privacy?”
He nodded, not looking up.
Ransom and I left the office, closing the door behind us. In the hallway, he let out a breath that could’ve steamed paint off the walls.
“He knows something,” Ransom said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But it’s not what you think.”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. “What is it, then?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
We waited. I watched Levi through the glass, saw the way his hand shook as he wrote. He’d pause, erase, start again. The kind of writing you only do when you’re about to rip out a part of yourself.
Twenty minutes passed. Ransom paced, back and forth, a caged bear.
Finally, Levi opened the door. He didn’t look at us. He just handed me the notepad, the pen dangling off the spiral like a limb.
“Done?” I asked.
He nodded.
I glanced at the first page, then flipped through the rest. The handwriting was messy, letters running together in a panic. But the meaning came through loud and clear.
Ransom read over my shoulder. His jaw tightened with each line. Every detail was more damning than the last. By the time we finished, my hands were shaking too.
Ransom looked at me, eyes gone black with anger. “What do we do now?”
I closed the notepad, careful not to crush it.
“Now,” I said, “we go hunting.”
Levi didn’t say anything when I closed the office door behind us. He just stared at the notepad in my hands, a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip and a jitter in his left leg that could’ve powered a sewing machine.
I sat down at my desk, flipped open to the first page, and waited. Sometimes, if you just shut up long enough, the truth gets lonely and wants company.
After a minute, he broke. “Is it… I mean, will you actually keep it anonymous? The stuff I wrote?”
I looked up. The way he asked, it wasn’t bravado anymore—it was the kind of naked fear that came from a lifetime of getting the shit end of every deal. I nodded, slow, making sure the weight of the promise was visible. “No one sees this but me. Not unless you say otherwise.”
He let out a breath, his whole body going slack for a second.
Ransom stood in the corner, arms crossed. He had that look—the one that meant he was reading the kid’s every move and taking notes for later. Levi noticed, too. He flinched a little and drew into himself, smaller still.
“Why don’t you go grab us some sodas,” I said to Ransom. It wasn’t a question, and he got it. He left, the door clicking soft behind him.
When he was gone, the room changed. The walls didn’t move, but Levi did; he slouched back, arms going loose at his sides. He watched me reading, silent until I’d turned the last page and looked up.
“What do you want to know?” he said, voice barely a whisper.
I set the notepad down. “You told me about the break-in. How you overheard the plan. How Billy Rawlins and his crew were going to hit the shop and make it look like a message to me. Why didn’t you come forward sooner?”
He shrugged, eyes on his chewed-up sneaker. “Didn’t want to get beat up. Didn’t want to end up like that cat they found by the tracks last winter.”
