“Then we make it work. We’ll be right there with you.”
“Yeah,” I manage. “Together.”
“Speaking of threats—” Wyatt’s tone shifts, goes professional. “DEA has an update on Rafael Marcano.”
I sit up straighter. “What do you have?”
“Not much. The identity looks fabricated—constructed within the last year or so. Mostly digital presence in Mexico until recently. But there’s credit card activity that puts him in Los Angeles.”
“When?”
“About two weeks ago. Maybe earlier, but that’s the first confirmed hit.”
The same week I got to LA. I’ve been here the whole time and didn’t notice a thing.
“Any visual? Photo?”
“Nothing. Guy pays cash for almost everything. The credit card pings are sparse—rental car, one hotel charge, a coffee chain. We’re working on who he really is, but it’s slow going.”
So there’s someone with a fabricated identity who surfaced around Vicente and Arturo, and he’s been in LA for two weeks. In Nina’s orbit. And we have no idea what he looks like.
“We’ll bring it up in the briefing tomorrow,” Wyatt says. “McIntyre should know the timeline.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m coming over,” Wyatt says. “We need to coordinate the briefing for McIntyre and Walsh anyway. Might as well do it in person.”
“You should stay with Nina.”
“She kicked me out to go grocery shopping. Said I was hovering. Callie’s coming over to take her clothes shopping for Thanksgiving in a bit anyway.” There’s a smile in his voice. “I’m already in the car.”
He’s giving me an excuse. A professional reason to say yes that doesn’t require admitting I might need him.
“Okay.”
“Ten minutes.”
He hangs up. I stare at my phone, at the recording still paused on my laptop, at the hotel suite that feels less like home than the safehouse I lived in after extraction.
Ten minutes. Not even enough time to close the recording and straighten up properly.
Instead I hit play again.
37
Chris
When Wyatt knocks, I’m still on the couch, laptop open, Vicente’s voice filling the empty room. I don’t move to answer. Just call out: “It’s open.”
He comes in, takes one look at me, at the laptop, and goes still.
“How long have you been listening to those?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Chris—”
“I thought if I heard it enough...” I close the laptop. “Make it just noise. Background static.”
