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Her attention sharpens. "Who was?"
"Neil Vogt."
"What did Vogt want from you?"
"Now you're asking the right question." I hold her gaze. "Run the APRA carrier approvals against the federal registry. You missed at least two."
For the first time, she goes completely still.
"Give me the numbers."
"Tell me who inside Torres's office told Neil I was scheduled to walk in."
"I don't know."
"Find out. Then we can talk about trading information."
She registers the offer without accepting it. Most people either challenge a direct command or retreat from it. Engel weighs it, decides what she can still extract, and chooses her next move.
The discipline catches my attention in a way the fitted jeans didn't. She understands command. She simply hasn't accepted mine.
"You need to leave," I say.
"If you have information about this woman, I need to hear it."
"You need to leave."
The second time lands different. My voice is flat, and the order carries the particular weight of a man who has stopped negotiating. She registers the change. Her read is complete. Pushing further risks the cooperation she's trying to build, and she knows it.
She studies me for another count. Whatever she came here for, she got it in the gap between the image landing on the metal and my hands hitting the tailgate.
"The card has a number on the back," she says. "If you want to talk about what you know, it reaches me directly."
"Tell Torres the federal building was compromised."
Her expression doesn't change, but her weight does. Barely. The shift is forward, onto the balls of her feet, and then she corrects.
The correction is faster than the tell. She's trained to suppress involuntary responses and almost always succeeds. Almost.
"I didn't say I knew Agent Torres."
"You didn't have to." I hold her gaze and let her work through the implications. She came here expecting a frightened fugitive mending fence in the desert. She's recalculating.
The name Torres changes her conclusion about me and watching her adjust is the first thing in this conversation that belongs to me instead of her.
"If Torres sent you, tell her Neil had the address before I did. That's why I didn't show."
Nothing comes back. Her face is set and professional, and whatever she's thinking stays behind the discipline. She's good. Better than anyone Neil has ever sent, which is either reassuring or the worst kind of dangerous.
One last measured beat of eye contact. Then she picks up her clipboard, walks to her truck without looking back, and pulls away. Her tires spit gravel as she backs across the cattle guard and swings onto the dirt road heading north.
The dust follows her out. I watch the plume shrink against the Florida Mountains until the road absorbs it and the only sound left is Red shifting weight in his pen.
I pick up the photograph and turn it over. Nothing on the back. No case number, no agency mark. The image is clean, portable, and deliberately untraceable. She left it here to work on me, and the fact that I'm still holding it means she was right.
The card is next. Western Range Mutual on the front, printed. A direct number on the back, handwritten. The area code belongs to El Paso.
I'm not calling her. I'm going to find her and make her answer me face-to-face. A phone gives her the power to hang up, and I'm done letting other people end conversations.
