Page 68 of Silent Watch
She didn't answer.She set the phone on the nightstand, closed the laptop, and pulled the blanket up to her chin.Tomorrow she'd go back to the bungalow at Sarge's.She'd review the security footage one more time.She'd find the thread that connected Montgomery to the operational decisions and pull it until the whole architecture came apart.
And she'd do it without telling Caleb, because right now telling him anything felt like handing pieces of herself to someone who might use them to take away the only thing she had left.
She closed her eyes.Sleep didn't come.
The next evening,Harper was alone.
She'd gone back to the bungalow that morning without saying much.Caleb had watched her leave from the kitchen table, his coffee untouched, his face giving away nothing.She'd walked the long way through the park, checking her six, and spent the day at Sarge's going through every document she had, looking for the connection Diana needed.
It was close.She could feel it—the way you could feel a word on the tip of your tongue, the shape of it clear even though the sound wouldn't come.Montgomery's fingerprints were on everything, but always through intermediaries, always through layers of corporate insulation that his lawyers had spent years constructing.
At nine p.m., she made herself a sandwich she didn't eat and sat at the small desk in the bungalow with Geri Crane's documentation spread around her.The photo album was open to a page she kept coming back to—a picture from 1994,The Blossom Springs Herald'stwenty-fifth anniversary.In the background, behind the staff and the cake and the banner, two men stood at the edge of the frame.One of them was Douglas Sattler, younger and thinner, his expression pleasant and unremarkable.The other man's face was half-turned away from the camera.
Harper had enlarged that photo four times.The half-turned face was familiar in a way she couldn't place, and the frustration of almost-recognition had been gnawing at her for days.
She was reaching for her magnifying glass when she heard footsteps on the gravel outside.
Not Caleb.Caleb moved quietly, and these steps weren't quiet.Two sets of feet, deliberate, heading for her door.
Harper closed the laptop and stood.The bungalow had one door, two windows, and a bathroom with a window too small to climb through.She'd assessed the exits the first day she moved in because that was what you did after more than a year of running—you learned the dimensions of every room you slept in.
A knock.Not hard.Almost polite.
"Ms.Warren?"A man's voice, calm, using her cover name."We need to talk to you about your vehicle.There's been some damage in the lot."
Harper moved to the side of the window and angled her body so she could see without being seen.Two men.Both were wearing dark jackets despite the heat.One stood at the door.The other had positioned himself between the bungalow and the parking lot—blocking the most direct route to the bar.
She pulled out her phone, tapped Caleb’s number, and typed with one thumb.
Two men at the bungalow.Not friendly.
She sent it before she could second-guess herself.
"Ms.Warren?"The knock came again, harder this time."We just need a moment."
She backed away from the door and grabbed Geri's photo album.Shoved it into her laptop bag along with the laptop and the USB drive from the security footage.Everything else could be replaced.
The door handle turned.She'd locked it, but the lock on a beach bungalow door was decorative at best.The man put his shoulder into it, and the frame splintered on the second push.
They came in fast.
The first man was tall, mid-forties, with a shaved head and the kind of economical movement that came from training.He scanned the room and zeroed in on Harper's laptop bag.The second man was shorter, broader, with a neck tattoo half-hidden by his collar.He closed the broken door behind him and leaned against it.
"Where are the files?"the tall one said.No preamble, no pretense.
"Which files?"
"Don't."He took a step closer."The documentation you've been compiling.The shell company records.The interview recordings.All of it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The shorter man by the door reached into his jacket and pulled out a phone.He held it up so she could see the screen—a photograph of Harper's rental car with the hood open, taken from the same angle as the security camera in Sarge's parking lot.They'd been there.They'd watched.
"We know who you are," the tall man said."We know what you're doing.We know about Marsh, we know about the Crane woman, and we know you've been working with someone.What we need to know is where you sent the files."
Harper's back was against the desk.The lamp was to her left—a heavy ceramic base, solid enough to do damage if she could reach it.Her phone was in her pocket.She didn't know if the message to Caleb had gone through.
"I'm a travel writer," she said."I'm writing a book about small-town Florida."
