Page 101 of The Lonely Road

“Where is it?”

“Top drawer of my desk.” She tilts her head toward the hallway that leads to the inner rooms—her office and bedroom.

“That’s why you’re worried that they may break in here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to check on it?”

She meets my gaze like I’ve handed her something valuable.

I’m a prized asshole.

“I just…I want to know it’s there.”

I go down the hallway.

The desk is neat, organized, and accessible, and the document is exactly where it should be. I open the drawer and pull out the microfiche print.

Five pages.

Her handwriting is in the margins in red pen—careful, precise, the same hand that labeled the client folders Wiley walked through today.

The same hand that’s held mine.

I stand at her desk.

I pull out my phone.

I photograph every page.

Five pages. Thirty seconds. I put it back exactly where I found it, walk back to the kitchen, stand across from her again, and pick up my wine.

I have been a man of flexible morality for many, many years, and I have done things in that time that I don’t discuss at dinner tables and some that I don’t discuss anywhere. I have always been able to account for them. Always been able to say: this was the job, these were the parameters, this was what I agreed to.

I account for it this time, too. This will keep Jessup away from her. And that’s all that matters.

“It’s there,” I tell her.

She closes her eyes briefly. “Thank you.”

Her gratitude grates because I don’t deserve it.

When she finds out—and she will—she’ll know that I did to her home what Trafton did to her office.

The same damage, different hands.

I am worse than Trafton because I photographed her files while she sat at the kitchen counter, trusting me with what she’s been protecting, the one thing nobody else knows, the vulnerability in the case she’s been building to keep Clara Whitman’s children on their land.

And I did it anyway.

“You’re exhausted.”

“Yes.”

“Go to bed.”

She tilts her head and smiles. “Will you stay?” Her voice is small, not pleading but asking.