We both understand what he's actually saying. Not that he won't give me Theo. That he can't. That whatever Silas knows about Theo Rhodes is the kind of information that doesn't have a clean exit once it's been exchanged. You sell it, and you live inside what comes after it. And Silas has looked at what comes after it and decided that no number I name tonight covers that cost.
"Okay," I say.
I reach into my jacket. I count out the bills without making a production of it, and I hold them out. Silas takes them without counting them either, because we're both past the point of performing distrust about the small things.
I turn back toward my car.
"Cody."
I stop.
I look back at him over my shoulder.
"When this is over," he says, "what happens to the team?"
I look at him for a moment, knowing that he loves having his position back. He doesn’t want that jeopardized.
"Depends on what everyone does next," I say and get in my car.
I sit in the dark of the parking lot and wait for Silas’s taillights to disappear.
I open my laptop, and the footage loads fast.
I go directly to the timestamp I marked before I left the cabin — not the beginning, not the parts that are mine, not anything that shows what she gave me willingly in that room –– just two seconds.
Two seconds of Adela.
Tied to my bed.
Blindfolded.
Completely unambiguous.
I open my messages and find Beckett's name.
I attach the clip.
No message. No explanation. No context. He doesn't need any of it — the clip is the entire message, every word of it, delivered in two seconds of footage that says everything I need it to say without requiring a single syllable from me.
I see you.
Your move.
I hit send.
I watch the notification confirm delivery.
Then I close my laptop, and I sit in the silence. I wonder where my little Adela is right now. I open the app that gives me the front view of the cabin. Nothing. Maybe she went into the trees.
I glance at my phone to see if Beckett responded. I don’t expect him to, but I’m wondering when he’ll see it.
I have been patient since I woke up in that hospital bed.
I am done being patient.
Chapter 51: Theo
Beckett'sphonechimes,andI watch his face before he looks at the screen.
