The bench. The sightline. The forty-five minutes. The arboretum path that avoids security. The three blocks north that avoids parking enforcement.
"Send this to Richard," she says. Her voice isn't steady. She makes it steady by the second word. "Now. Every detail. The address, the routine, the bench, the sightline. All of it."
She hands me the phone.
"Maya—"
"We still have to talk about the call. The rules you broke are still on the table. We are going to have that conversation and it's going to be bad." Her jaw tightens. "But right now, a man is sitting on a bench watching me leave work every afternoon, and I have five days until a hearing, and this information makes the case airtight. So send it to Richard. Then we'll deal with you."
I send it standing in the bedroom doorway, forwarding the encrypted data to Richard's secure email through Marco's intermediary, the information laundered just enough to be legally usable.
Richard will have it in minutes.
Maya watches the screen. Her breath comes through her nose, measured, deliberate.
"You broke the terms," she says.
"I know."
"The door I told you about. The one that closes when someone takes my choices away."
"I remember."
"It's staying open today because I need the information and the timing matters." She holds my eyes. "But the door moved. It's closer than it was. The next time you go below the terms, the next time you make a decision about my safety without my voice in the room, it shuts."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"I know why I'm still standing here. The data."
"That's exactly right."
She turns, grabs her bag from the chair, and leaves the room.
Cole stands near the foot of the bed, his shoes tied, his eyes on me.
"Not Marco," he says quietly. "Someone deeper in your father's world."
"I know, Cole."
"You used it. For her. Without asking."
"Yes."
He crosses to me and puts his hand on my chest, palm flat over my sternum.
"The information is good," he says. "It might end this."
His hand presses. Holds. Then drops.
He follows Maya downstairs. Their footsteps move through the hallway.
The front door opens, then shuts.
Chapter 28
Maya
