Page 68 of Hunt Me, Daddy

I narrowed my eyes. “See, that.”

“That was a question.”

“That was a trap with punctuation.”

His mouth curved. “You object to traps?”

“I object to other people setting them badly.”

“And when they set them well?”

I took a sip of coffee to buy myself time, which was a bad idea. It was hot enough to punish me for my impatience.

“I make a note,” I said finally.

“Of the trap?”

“Of the person.”

His gaze rested on me, steady and pale and far too attentive. “And what have you noted?”

“About you?”

“Yes.”

“Vague. Controlled. Doesn’t waste words. Possibly allergic to small talk. Knows more than he lets on.”

“Accurate.”

“That’s not the denial I expected.”

“No.”

I waited and he let the silence just sit there. Most men would have filled it. Most men would have tried to defend themselves and turn the conversation back on me before the silence got too intimate. Ivan did none of that. He sat across from me in a café full of people and let me decide whether I wanted to follow the thread. That should have felt like pressure, but it didn’t. It felt like even ground, which was infinitely more dangerous.

I picked up my coffee again and gave myself permission to run the test I’d planned before leaving the apartment.

“I’ll be honest,” I said, which was usually a sign that I was about to lie selectively. “Most of my work is less exciting than people think. Defensive assessments. Compliance cleanup. Client handholding. I don’t do much active attribution anymore.”

Ivan’s expression did not change.

Good.

“Too much guesswork,” I continued. “Too much narrative built around incomplete data. I prefer confirmed indicators. Hard artifacts. Things that hold up under pressure.”

What I was telling him was incorrect; I wanted to see if he’d correct me, but I could tell that he knew what I was saying was wrong. I didn’t know how I knew that he knew. I just did.

He did not correct me. Instead, he took a slow drink of coffee, set the cup down, and asked, “Then how do you handle a case where the confirmed indicators only exist because someone wanted you to confirm them?”

My fingers tightened around my cup. There it was. The question only worked if the thing I’d said were true.

Which meant he knew it wasn’t.

Which meant he had seen the test and stepped around it without making me feel foolish for setting it.

I didn’t confront him. Instead, I smiled faintly and said, “Then I ask who benefits from my certainty.”

A flicker of approval moved through his eyes. It was there and gone so fast I might have missed it if I hadn’t spent my entire life watching people try not to reveal things.