“Hey, this isn’t my fault.” Harvey shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor for a second before glancing back up. “To be fair, I didn’t tell them.”
“You absolutely did something,” Margo said. “Or we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“As I said, I got ambushed just like the four of you did,” Harvey explained.
“A heads up would’ve been good,” Rad pointed out, his eyes narrowing on Harvey.
“They barged into my apartment before dawn like a raid from a very well-dressed government agency.” His voice rose slightly. “Then they confiscated my phone before I had time to react. I thought I was about to be dragged off to some black ops cell theway they came in and then never let me out of their sight for hours.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Harvey,” June stated, but Margo didn’t miss the slight smug smile on her face.
“How did you find out?” Willa asked.
“Well, sweetheart,” June answered her daughter. “I recognized a piece of art in a video. A piece of art you bought for Harvey for his birthday a few years ago.”
“Harvey!” The four of them hissed once again, their eyes glaring at the young man.
“What is that phrase that’s used for a situation like this?” June tapped one finger lightly against her chin and glanced at Holt. “You know when people get caught doing something shady or underhanded or not telling the truth, and it gets found out?”
“You’re all busted,” Holt told them, his stance shifting slightly as his arms folded across his chest.
Margo felt the room shift at that.
Not because they’d been caught. She’d known that already the moment she saw the altered clip. No, it shifted because Holt hadn’t said much yet, and when he finally did, the entire temperature of the kitchen changed.
“And I think,” Holt said, his voice controlled and calm, “it’s time to start telling the truth.”
Silence met him.
His eyes traveled between them, making Margo feel like shrinking or wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
“Because June and I,” Holt went on, “are not interested in being tricked into cleaning up a mess you created that has now spiraled far beyond any of you having control over it.”
That did it. Like when someone broke their parents' favorite vase, and no one wanted to own up. The four of them did what everyone would in that situation—they all started talking at once. Not answering, exactly. More trying to rush past the accusation before it landed properly with a barrage of nonsensical excuses.
“It wasn’t supposed to go?—”
“We were handling it?—”
“You don’t understand?—”
“We were going to tell?—”
“Stop!” Holt didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The word cut like a crack of a whip through everything, and every voice in the room died under it.
Margo swallowed, and her breath caught in her throat for a few seconds. Something in Holt’s tone hit an odd place in people. Not fear exactly. Command. The sort that left very little room for debate.
If he had told them all to sit right then, she thought, every person in that kitchen would have done it.
“What on earth were you thinking?” June asked. Her voice was also cool and controlled, which was somehow worse than if she had shouted.
Margo had known June when she was angry. She’d seen flashes of it over the years, directed at injustice, bureaucracy, bad policy,and the occasional particularly obnoxious human being. But this was different. This was anger held on a leash so short it looked almost calm.
“This is not a game,” June continued. “Whatever Gilbert Fry was investigating ten years ago may be what got him killed.”
Her gaze moved across the room, resting nowhere and everywhere.
“And the way he died,” Holt flawlessly picked up from where June had left off, “the way all five of them died, was public and violent for a reason.”
