The laptop.
He's going to be furious about the laptop. Not because he needs it — he has money, he has his father, he can replace it a hundred times over. He's going to be furious because of what's on it. Because the laptop is the evidence and the evidence is the thing that proves what he is, and he wants it back, not because it's his, but because it's dangerous.
And he knows I had it.
His father knows.
I wipe down the counter and think about honesty. Whether it's serving me. Whether telling the truth — I found the laptop, I watched the videos, the masked men took it, I don't know where it is now — whether any of that helps or whether it just hands Cody a roadmap of everything I know while I'm standing in his father's house tomorrow night.
I stack cups and decide on nothing.
The shift ends at six.
The early dark had fallen while I was inside. I step out into it and feel it immediately. The parking lot. My car across it. Thedistance between here and there is not actually a long distance, but feels, in this moment, with Cody's voice still in my head, like something I need to cross quickly.
I walk fast.
I am almost to the Range Rover when footsteps behind me—
"Adela."
I spin.
Jordan. Just Jordan, coat on, holding a folder. I press my hand against my chest and breathe.
"Sorry," he says immediately, reading my face. "Didn't mean to startle you." He holds out the folder. "Paperwork. I kept forgetting to give it to you."
I take it. "Thank you."
He looks at me for a moment. "Everything okay?"
"Yes," I say. "Long day."
"You did good today." He says it simply, the way he says everything. "You're fast, and you don't complain. That's rarer than it sounds."
Something in my chest loosens slightly. "Thank you, Jordan."
"See you tomorrow?"
"What time?"
"Morning. Seven."
I nod. "I'll be there."
He goes back inside. I get in my car and sit with the folder on my lap and the dark outside the windows and breathe until my hands stop feeling like they belong to someone else.
Seven in the morning is early.
I'm there at six fifty-five because I don't sleep well, and the alternative is lying in the dark thinking about tomorrow night, and I would rather be moving.
The café is different in the morning. Quieter at first and then suddenly not — the commuter rush hitting like a wave, orders stacking up, the machine running at full speed before I've fully woken up. Jordan put me on the espresso bar today, which means learning the grinder, the tamper, and the specific timing of a proper pull.
I learn it in twenty minutes.
My coworker appears beside me at eight — the girl from yesterday, dark ponytail, the particular warm energy of someone who likes people and makes no apologies for it. She looks at my cups and raises her eyebrows.
"You're good at that."
