"You busy?"
"Just got home. What's up?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "You and I are close, right?"
"I'd like to think so. Why?"
"You remember me saying that for this to work there can't be secrets."
"Right."
"I need to know something. About your father."
The warmth left her voice. "Noah, I said that was off limits."
"I know you did but I need to know. Is he laundering money for the Sinaloa Cartel?"
A long pause. He could hear her breathing change. "You just can't stop, can you?"
"Why can't you just tell me?"
"Because I don't know."
"Can you find out?"
"Noah, let me get this right. You want me to spy on my father?"
"No. I..."
"That's exactly what you're asking me to do."
"Look, I have reason to believe the cartel provides Luther with massive amounts of dirty cash generated from drug and human trafficking, including smuggling operations across the Canadian border. If he isn't involved, fine. Then there's nothing to hide."
"I'm not doing this. Not again."
"So there are secrets."
"Noah."
"I'm sorry, Nat. I just don't trust him."
"Him or me?"
He closed his eyes. "Look, maybe we should just call it a day. You know, you and I."
Silence on the other end. "Is that what you really want?"
"I think we need to stop lying to ourselves. This isn't going to work."
"If that's what you want."
A pause. "Yeah. That's what I want."
The line went dead. Noah set the phone on the counter and stood there for a long time, looking at nothing.
Noah hadthe file spread across Gretchen's kitchen table when she came in from the other room. He wasn't looking at the sketch. He'd moved past it to the witness statements underneath, the ones that had gone nowhere five years ago. It was just sitting there, face up, half buried under a stack of interview transcripts.
Mia and Ethan were in the living room with the television on low. Gretchen had made dinner for all of them. Noah had brought the file because he couldn't stop looking at it, and because Gretchen's kitchen table was bigger than his.
