Page 9 of Silent Watch
Caleb typed back without looking at the screen.
Meeting her now.Intel is solid.
How solid?
She walked into the lion's den alone because she thought she could finish the story.No backup, no extraction plan.
A pause.Then:
Sounds like someone I know.
Enjoy your honeymoon.Stop texting me.
He pocketed the phone as footsteps crunched on the shell path.
Harper came downthe path the way a deer crosses an open field—slow, deliberate, ready to bolt.
She came down the path slowly, pausing to scan the shadows.Her right hand stayed near her hip—not reaching for anything, but ready.When she spotted him, she stopped.Let him come to her.
Smart.If he'd been hostile, she'd have had a head start back to the bungalows.
"You're early," he said.
"So are you."
"Habit."
"Same."She closed the distance and stopped an arm's length away."You said my research checks out."
"It does.You've mapped things we missed."He paused."You've also made yourself a target."
"I was already a target.This just gave me something to do while I waited for them to find me."
The flatness in her voice made him look at her more carefully.She wasn't being dramatic.She'd done the math and accepted the answer.
"That's not a strategy," he said."That's surrender with extra steps."
"It's the only play I had."Her jaw tightened."I spent fourteen months hiding.Jumping at every noise, moving every time someone looked at me wrong.You know what that does?It hollows you out.Makes you smaller every day."
He knew.He'd lived it after the NSA fallout.
"So you stopped hiding and started hunting."
"I decided if they were going to kill me anyway, I'd make it worth something."She met his eyes."Isak died trying to give me a name.The person at the top.I'm not stopping until I find it."
"Isak Thorne."
"You know about him."
"I know he was your source.Killed in Mobile fourteen months ago.Official story is robbery.I know that's a lie."
Her chin dropped.Just slightly.The first unguarded movement he'd seen from her—grief, breaking through the control for half a second before she pulled it back.
"He called me the night before.Said he'd found the person running everything.Said he'd bring me proof."
"And then he was dead."
"Two bullets.Parking garage.Professional job dressed up to look amateur."Her hands curled into fists."I saw the footage before they scrubbed it.The shooter walked up like they were old friends.Never looked at the camera."
