Because moving it means going to the jewelry box and taking it out and finding somewhere else for it, and every one of those actions is an action that could be observed, and there is a man at the bottom of the stairs whose entire function is to observe actions.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
Downstairs, a door opens. Footsteps cross the entrance hall, heavy and even, and I know the rhythm of them; Rafael is moving through his own house.
He hasn't slept. His voice this morning, when I passed the study, was the voice of a man who has been talking for hours without stopping and intends to keep talking.
He is going to find whoever did this.
I sit on the edge of the bed in the flat grey afternoon light, and I look at the jewelry box on the dressing table. I think about twelve minutes and three men on the ground, and the route reference I typed into a phone while he slept. I think about Laura. I think about the man at the bottom of the stairs.
He wants to know who talked.
The walls are not closing in.
They have already closed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
RAFAEL
There's a fucking rat in my home and when I find that rat, it'll wish it had never been born.
That's where I am after fourteen hours. Four names with soft edges, two timelines that don't hold, one communication log with a gap in it that somebody put there deliberately and thought I wouldn't notice.I noticed.
I notice everything.
That's the problem with being me, I notice everything and I still don't have the name I need and the day is ending.
The rat is still in my walls somewhere, warm, fed and breathing my air.
I push back from the desk.
My phone buzzes. Matteo.
I pick up on the second ring and move to the window. The room has been closing in for the last hour, and I need something to look at that isn't the same four walls or the same files I've been through three times already.
"Tell me something useful," I say.
"Nothing useful to tell." Matteo's voice is even, the voice he uses when he's choosing his words carefully, which is always, but more so now. "My men have been through the external communication logs twice. Nothing that points outward cleanly."
"Which means it's internal."
"Yes."
I knew but it still pisses me off.
I press two fingers to the bridge of my nose. "I'm losing my damned mind over here, Matteo."
A pause. Not surprised, Matteo doesn't do surprised, just processing. "How many have you questioned?"
"Everyone with access to the northern schedule. Four come back soft. None of them are breaking."
"Then you wait."
"I don't want to wait. I want the name."
"I know." His voice is measured, the voice of a Don who has done this before. "You'll have it. These things surface, brother. Keep the pressure even, don't let them breathe, and one of them will move."
