Page 15 of Rope Burn
He's right, and the observation isn't about one missing badge. It's cumulative. The insurance credentials are in my truck because this isn't a work night, and every piece of the cover that should be on me isn't.
He reads people like I read data, through the gaps and the inconsistencies. A woman who shows up stripped of her professional equipment is here for a different reason.
"You drove several hours and entered a rodeo you hadn't planned to attend," I say. "You didn't do that to post a time."
"I came because you're watching the circuit. Easier to make you come to me than search every motel in Deming looking for a conversation you don't want to have in the dark."
"You could have called."
"You could have answered me at the ranch."
His gaze drops to my mouth before returning to my eyes. The move is intentional. He wants me to know exactly where his attention went.
"So what do you call this?" he says.
"An active investigation."
"And when it's over?"
"You're assuming it ends."
"Everything ends, Engel. The question is what replaces it."
"That confidence work on everyone?"
"I don't need it to work on everyone."
The answer lands lower than it should. I let it pass.
“So, what kind of information are you holding?”
"Who tipped off Voigt about the Torres appointment?
"I can't tell you who tipped off Vogt about the Torres appointment because I don't know yet. That's the truth, and it's the only answer you're getting tonight."
He watches me for a long count, and I watch him back. Two people with the same instinct and opposite leverage, each holding information the other needs.
The overhead flood light catches the scar across the bridge of his nose and the lines around his eyes. The focus he turns on me carries the weight it carried in the arena. The steer had no choice about what came next. I do, and the patience in Carrick's gaze says he knows the difference.
“There are two phantom carriers. Two companies in the APRA system that don't appear in the federal registry. If I start giving you names,” he says, “and they stay contained, I’ll give you more."
It takes everything I have to keep my face still.
"You have until the next performance to tell me how Neil knew about the Torres appointment," he says. "After that, I take what I have somewhere else."
"There’s nowhere else that isn't compromised."
"Then you'd better prove you aren't."
He picks up his gear bag and slings it over one shoulder. He holds my gaze a beat longer, and the heat in it is open, unashamed, patient.
"You know where to find me," he says.
He turns toward his truck and climbs in. The engine starts. The headlights sweep across the lot. He doesn't look back. He doesn't need to.
Fourteen dollars of turquoise circles my wrist. Hendricks's data sits in my bag, and every carrier in it can run against the federal registry before sunrise. Carrick looked at me tonight with the same focus he brought to the steer, the same physical certainty. The patience underneath it says he's already decided what he wants. The control says he'll wait until I decide whether he gets it.
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