Page 71 of Silent Watch
He didn't ask when.He taped a butterfly bandage over the cut and moved to her lip.She flinched when the antiseptic touched the split skin, but didn't pull away.
"They knew about the files," she said."They knew I'd sent something tonight.They asked who I sent it to."
"I know."
"How do you know?"
He set down the antiseptic and met her eyes.The lamp threw shadows across her battered face, and her pupils were equal and reactive, no sign of concussion.She was watching him with an expression he couldn't read—not anger, exactly, but something adjacent to it.Something that was waiting for an answer before it decided what to become.
"Because I was monitoring your communications too."
Harper went still.
"You saw me contact Diana."
"Yes."
"You saw me send her the files."
"Yes."
"And you didn't say anything."Her voice was very quiet."You just watched.Like I was an operation."
"Yes."
She stood up.The butterfly bandage on her forehead was already darkening with blood seeping from underneath, and she pressed the back of her hand against it without seeming to notice.She moved to the kitchen, putting the width of the room between them.
"How long?"
"Since the beginning."
"Since the beginning."She repeated it flat, testing the weight of it."So every conversation we've had.Every moment I thought I was making my own decisions?—"
"You were making your own decisions.I was watching you make them."
"That's worse."Her hand came down from her forehead.Blood smeared across her knuckles."That's so much worse, Caleb.You let me believe I had agency while you tracked everything I did.You let me send those files to Diana while you sat in this kitchen and watched it happen on a screen."
"Yes."
"Stop saying yes."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell me why.Not why you monitored me—I understand operational security.I want you to tell me why you didn't stop me.You saw me contact Diana.You saw me send the files.If you thought it was a mistake, you could have walked across the room and said so.Instead, you let me do it, and then you came through a window to save me from the consequences."
Caleb stood.The first aid kit was still open on the coffee table, gauze, antiseptic, and butterfly bandages laid out in the neat rows his training had made automatic.He looked at them instead of her.
"Because it was the right call," he said."Sending the files to Diana.It was the right move, and I knew it, and I couldn't tell you that without admitting I was watching."
"So you let the attack happen instead?"
"No."His voice hardened."I was already moving before they reached your door.I was parked behind the furniture store on Sunset Beach Road, watching the bungalow feed on my phone.When I saw them approach, I moved.If I'd been thirty seconds slower—" He stopped.
"What?"
"If I'd been thirty seconds slower, one of them would have had a knife at your throat before I came through the window."
The kitchen was quiet.The refrigerator hummed.Outside, something rustled in the underbrush—a raccoon, probably, or a possum making its rounds.
