Page 119 of In the Dark of the Past

I decided it didn’t. Not today. Maybe later.

I went back inside.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Finn said without looking up.

“Clinical habit.”

“Sit down. I’ll tell you when something happens.”

“You always say that. You never do it.”

He looked up then, and the expression on his face was fond and tired and completely aware of what he was doing. “Sit down anyway. You don’t have to stop thinking. Just do it somewhere I can see you.”

I sat down at the table across from him, and he went back to his legal pad.

We worked in parallel for two hours. It was almost ordinary.

Finn’s phone rang a little after 2:00 p.m.

He looked at the screen, and his face went still. He answered it and put it on speaker without being asked, which told me he’d already decided I should hear whatever this was.

“Sean,” he said.

A pause, then his brother’s quiet voice. “I have a lawyer,” Sean said. “Someone from Portland. He’s been briefed.”

Finn said nothing.

“We’re calling the AG’s office at four,” Sean said. “I’ll go in voluntarily. Full statement. Everything. Grant’s structure, the MR-7 transfers, the names of every enforcement contact I was ever given. Everything I know about the list.” He paused. “I swear I didn’t know River’s name was on it. I need you to know that. I know it doesn’t⁠—”

“I know,” Finn said, his voice flat. Not forgiving nor dismissing.

“I’m sorry, Finn.”

The kitchen was quiet.

“Call the AG at four,” Finn said. “Don’t deviate from what your lawyer tells you to do. And, Sean⁠—”

“Yeah?”

“Make it count.”

He ended the call.

From the doorway, Atlas said, “He’s cooperating?”

“Yes,” Finn said.

“Good.” Atlas crossed the room and poured some coffee. “That’s the thing about coerced people. Once the coercion’s gone, some of them actually want out.”

Finn looked at the phone for a moment, then set it face-down on the table.

“River, you okay?” he asked.

I thought about it honestly, the way I’d made a habit of doing. “I think so,” I said. “Ask me again in an hour.”

The corner of his mouth moved. “Deal.”

The second call at 5:47 p.m. wasn’t from Sean. It was from Libby. And her voice, when Finn answered on speaker again, had the tone I associated with bad news that was being delivered carefully so as not to cause a controlled panic.