Page 39 of His Wall

She gathered the last of the folders against her chest.

She walked to the door.

She closed it behind her.

She was not in the room when I opened the folder.

Was she?

EIGHT

LEAH

The hand on the back of my neck was Julian's.

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. I was on the couch in sweats with my hair down for the second day in a row and a mug of cold coffee on the floor beside me. I stayed awake long enough to have a position.

The position was, saturday was a mistake.

The mistake was mine. I stopped at the railing instead of walking past it. I let him tuck the strand of hair behind my ear. I leaned a fraction into the warmth of his hand. I let his mouth come down to mine, I kissed him back, and I pulled him closer.

The mistake was not going to happen again.

I had a plan: report what was operational, omit what was personal, stay on protocol, and finish the case.

I picked up the phone and called Harlow.

She answered on the second ring.

"Sunday, Calder."

"I know."

"What is it, Calder?"

"He took me to dinner with the partners. I went. I sat next to him. He told a story about Hale from the early days that the whole table laughed at. He talked about his mother once, briefly. I ran into him at the park yesterday and he walked with me. We talked. He told me he used to want to be an architect. He told me his mother died when he was twenty-six and that was the reason he went into finance."

"That's good, Calder."

"He's opening up."

"That's good."

"I'm planning to keep at it. I'm going to the gala on Saturday."

"As his date."

"As his date."

A pause.

"Get him talking about the founding of the Vanguard. That's where the case lives. Whoever paid that judge in 2007, that's our man. If Cross was naive — Cross was naive — but if he knows anything, he knows it from those years. Push there."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Anything else?"

I sat with the phone against my cheek and the cold coffee at my foot and the lie sitting behind my teeth like a small smooth stone. I could feel the shape of it.