Page 105 of His Wall

The answer was me.

My judgment.

The thing I had stopped trusting three years ago because trusting it once had cost a man I loved an eleven-minute bleed on a concrete floor.

I parked across the street. The lobby was lit through the glass. Reggie at the security desk with his head in a paperback. The elevator panel above his shoulder showed the indicator at the twelfth floor and stationary.

I looked up.

The lights were on in Julian's apartment.

I checked the weapon at my back. I got out of the car.

I crossed the street at the curb and went around to the service entrance on the side. I had a key card from the Bureau-issued credentials kit and I used it. The door clicked open.

I took the stairs.

Elevators announced you. Elevators put you in a metal box. Elevators opened on a floor at a fixed point that the people on that floor could see coming.

Twelve flights. I took them at the pace I had drilled at Quantico — quiet, fast, controlled. My breathing did not change. My weapon stayed at my hip.

I came off the stairwell on twelve.

The hallway was empty. The carpet was the same carpet I had walked across this afternoon with a bottle of wine in my hand, and at 6:00 a.m. when I had walked back out of his apartment with my hair a mess and his shirt under my jacket.

His door was closed.

I crossed to it. I put my ear against the wood.

Voices.

More than one.

A man's voice — calm, patient. I heard fragments. "Your partners will understand... The alternative is a public version of this conversation in eight days... your architecture... your name on every document..."

Another voice. Julian. Tight. Strained.

I tried the handle and the door was unlocked.

But Julian had locked the door behind me this morning and said, "Yes, Agent Calder."

I drew the weapon. I put my left hand flat against the door. I pushed it open one inch. Two.

Through the gap, I saw the living room.

Julian was standing at the corner of the kitchen counter with his back to the cabinet behind him. His sandy hair was a mess. His white shirt was untucked at the front. His hands were at his sides. From eight feet away, his hands were shaking.

Conrad was on the couch.

The gray suit. The signet ring. A glass of whiskey by his side.

A woman in a navy suit beside him with a leather portfolio open on her lap. A stack of papers I assumed were documents lay on the coffee table.

The man by the window had a gun in his right hand.

Aimed at Julian.

Not lowered. Not resting.