Page 150 of Never Alone
"I will."
The kitchen was very quiet. Sam had not moved from where he was standing.
"Tonight, Cole. If we're going to do this, we have to move on it before he hires a new lawyer and goes back underground."
"I'll talk to her tonight."
She hung up.
I held the phone in my hand a beat longer than I needed to. The screen had already gone dark. I set it face down on the counter.
Sam was watching me.
"What did she say?"
I told him. The audit. The flipped attackers. The warrant.
I didn't say the wire yet. I held it.
He waited.
I said the wire.
He let out a breath. He didn't say anything for a long count. Then he reached past me and turned the burner off under the kettle that had not been whistling but had been about to.
"That's a hell of a thing to ask." Sam's voice was low. The register he used when he was not joking.
"Yeah."
"Cole."
He waited until I looked at him. He had a face that made you look at him eventually, whether you wanted to or not.
"Yeah."
"Don't ask her for me. Ask her for her. She's the one who has to live with it."
"I know."
He held my eye for a beat. He had a way of holding an eye like a hand on a shoulder. Then he let it go.
I waited until everyone had gone.
Aunt Jenna had taken Noah upstairs to the guest room. Carol had driven Sean home. Quinn had left at ten because she had a shift in the morning. Sam and Jamie had gone to bed.
The house was quiet.
Tessa was at the kitchen counter with a glass of water in her hand. She had not gone to bed because she had been waiting for me to come find her. I came and found her.
The kitchen was lit by the under-counter strip Jamie kept on at night, the kind of soft glow that left the corners of the room dark and put Tessa in a half-light that made her look younger and older at the same time. She had changed out of the sweater. She was in one of Jamie's shirts, the cuffs rolled twice. Her hair was still up from the drive.
"Hey." My voice came out low. The voice you use in a house that has gone to sleep.
"Hey." Hers came back the same way.
I stopped on the other side of the counter from her. Close enough to talk. Not close enough to make her decide to come around it.
"Miranda called."
