"Careful, Corbin. You almost sound like you admire me."
"Don't push it, Holloway."
He climbs into the truck. I stand in the parking lot for a moment, feeling the heat of the asphalt through my boots and the warmth of his words settling into places I should probably be protecting.
I get in the truck. Colt starts the engine.
"We need to talk about going public," I say.
His head turns. "What do you mean?"
"I have journalism contacts. Real ones, not the fake credentials. If we write the story ourselves, using only the information I can independently source without touching Torres's evidence, we can put public pressure on the investigation. Make it harder for Merrick to bury."
"Torres said to keep our heads down."
"Torres said not to discuss the investigation. A journalistic exposé on circuit corruption, financial fraud, and suspicious rider deaths isn't discussing the investigation. It's reporting a story. A story I can source entirely through my own financial analysis, public records, and interviews with circuit insiders who are willing to talk."
Colt considers this. I watch him run the calculation, weighing risk against reward, patience against action, and the intelligence behind the process is the part of him that people underestimate because they're too busy looking at the shoulders and the scars.
"Quinn," he says. "Quinn would talk. He's been carrying that guilt since Grant died."
"Quinn, and anyone else who's willing. If the story breaks big enough, the dam breaks. People come forward because the silence stops being safer than the truth."
The truck idles. The parking lot empties around us as federal employees head home.
"Torres won't like it," Colt says.
"Torres doesn't have to like it. She just has to use it, and she will. A public exposé puts pressure on every official who's been turning a blind eye. It makes Merrick's lawyers work harder. It makes witnesses feel safe enough to come forward because they're not alone anymore."
He studies me. The anger from the past few days has banked to coals, and next to it, the thing I've been watching grow since Creede. Respect, maybe. Or something with more weight that neither of us is ready to name, especially not in a federal parking lot.
"Write the story," he says. "I'll back you up."
"Was that an order or an offer?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me."
He holds my gaze. "It's a promise. Write the story, Kenna. I've got your back."
My name in his mouth, said like that, with the weight of the day and the evidence and the kitchen and the two steps all packed into two syllables. It lands harder than the compliment did.
I pull out my phone and start making calls.
14
COLT
The circuit moves to Scottsdale, and we move with it.
The days between the FBI meeting and the Scottsdale event settle into a rhythm I wasn't expecting. We get adjoining rooms at a motel outside of town, and Kenna works her contacts from her side with the connecting door propped open, arguing with editors in the morning and sweet-talking sources at night. The sounds of her building a story become the background noise of my life.
We don't talk about the kitchen. We banter and bicker and trade Grant stories and avoid touching each other with the focused discipline of two people who know exactly what will happen when they stop avoiding it. The adjoining door stays open during the day and closed, but unlocked, at night, and neither of us acknowledges the compromise.
The bull in chute three is a Thornton animal. Close to a ton of Brahma cross with a reputation for spinning left and dropping his shoulder mid-turn, and a few weeks ago I would have drawn this bull and treated it like a death sentence I was happy to receive.
Tonight I treat it like a job.
