“Is that so?”
“Very much so.”
They move through the apartment slowly, cataloguing everything. Cassian is tactical about it. He checks for signs of the place being lived in, the marks years leave behind. Talon just seems interested in the furniture, the amenities, the state of things.
I gesture to the kitchen table. “Sit.”
Cassian doesn’t sit. He positions himself near the wall. I retrieve a brown folder from a cabinet above the fridge and place it on the table.
“You wanted a reason to trust me,” I say, and open the folder. “I’ve given you my address. Now I’m going to show you my crime.”
I take out the printed hospital records on Leonard’s history and slide them to the center of the table. Then the notes on his bloodwork. A breakdown of his compromised liver function. Timestamps showing when I entered and left the building. Logs of the medications I removed from the hospital supply closet. Diagrams calculating precise dosages. A list of the janitorial contractor’s employees, with the one name that mattered highlighted. A summary of motive.
At the bottom, a single line:
Outcome: Controlled cardiac arrest. Time to asystole: 2 minutes, 41 seconds.
Talon inhales sharply. Exhales in a long, incredulous whistle.
“I’m pretty sure just bringing us here would’ve been enough,” he mutters.
“I doubt it.” I look at Cassian. “Your acquaintance is very guarded.”
Even on his hard features, the surprise is visible. He pushes off the wall. Sits at the table. Picks up one of the pages.
“Did I shake your worldview to such an extent?” he says. “I could report you.”
“You could,” I agree. “But I wouldn’t get incriminated.”
“How come?” Talon asks. “You’ve got all this written down like a madman. This is basically a confession.”
“Only in theory.”
Papers on a table can be anything. Medical curiosity. Material for a case study. Creative writing. A man’s private fantasy about murdering his mother’s killer, written in the raw weeks after her death. Disturbing, perhaps. But not criminal.
There is no murder weapon. No sign that Leonard’s death was anything other than organ failure in a man whose organs were already failing. The hospital sign-in log shows me present at the time he died.
With enough finesse, I could defend myself in trial. It would mean relocating afterward, but I’ve already considered it.
I flatten my palms on the table. “Any doubts?”
Silence. It stretches long enough that I begin counting the seconds out of habit, and then Cassian breaks it.
“Do you want to develop the sight yourself?” he asks. “After Talon gets it?”
“If it works on him, then yes.”
“That would mean you put your life in our hands,” Cassian says. “Because if we do this, we’re not disclosing shit to anyone else. It’s just us three.”
“I agree,” Talon mutters. “Three is enough risk as it is.”
“Are you two from around here?” I ask.
“I am,” Cassian replies. “Talon’s a… tourist.”
I look at Talon. He swallows and looks away.
There’s some story there, clearly. But I don’t push. Whether he tells me or not is his choice. What I care about are results, not pasts.
