Page 53 of The Last Dance

“No,” I said, quieter. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I’ll stay in the car. You can glue me to the seat if you want.” The joke failed before it landed. “I won’t get out. I just want to see it. One time.”

I wanted to say, you’re not a detective, you’re not a victim, you’re not my agent in the field. But what I really wanted to say was, You are not bait.

Instead, I said, “Drive-by only. After dark. Armored car. Yuri drives. Two other men.”

He didn’t smile, but his shoulders lost some of their tension. “Deal.”

“Just once,” I said. “You don’t get to gloat.”

He snorted. “Not even a little?”

I shook my head. “Not even a molecule.”

He looked at the dust motes spinning in the light. “Okay,” he said. He started to collect his notes, folding them into the book’s end pages with care.

It wasn’t a victory. It was the kind of agreement two cornered animals make: a truce with teeth on both sides.

I watched him, thinking about how the sunbeam had already moved halfway to his hand, that soon it would hit the next book, and the next, and then finally the wall, where it would vanish.

I thought about time, and patience, and how the thing you want to escape is never behind you, but always ahead, waiting for the moment you are slow enough to be caught.

He didn’t look at me as he finished packing his books. “Do you think he’s waiting for something?”

I said, “He’s waiting for you to want it.”

I heard him breathe, once, in and out. Then he stood, the books under his arm, and walked to the door. At the threshold, he paused. “You want to come with me?” He meant to the house, but there was a second layer to it.

I answered honestly. “Always.”

The next day, after dark, we went.

The city at night was a circuit board: all voltage and dark, every street a conductive trace. We rode it at a slow pulse, the armored car rolling silent except for the low huff of the climate control and the bone-dull percussion of the road beneath us.

I sat in the back, one knee braced against the armrest, Iren pressed so close to my side I could feel his heart click through its electrical parade.

Yuri rode up front, half-turned in the seat, eyes never leaving the rearview. He wore a jacket with the insignia removed, not for stealth but because he didn’t believe in hiding what everyone already knew.

The man beside him—never named, never needing one—kept hands folded on his knees, gaze aimed straight ahead.

We left the grid behind, block by block, until the lights dropped out and the houses went from vertical to horizontal, from human to animal.

Iren hadn’t spoken since we buckled him in. He tracked every turn, every street sign, the velocity of the car, the intervals between the stops. His breathing was even, but his eyes worked like a scanner, line by line, digitizing every inch of the world outside.

When we hit the subdivision, the darkness changed. Here, the lawns were lit by LEDs buried under the sod. The windows all faced the street, but none were open. Every mailbox was the same, down to the inch. The car glided through at parade pace. The only difference from a hearse was the lack of flowers.

The house was a one-story, maybe a dozen yards off the curb, with a drive that curved right to the garage and stopped. No flag, no welcome mat, no decoration. Even the porch light was an LED, colorless, set to just illuminate the security sign. The curtains were black, not a gap in the weave. The only sound was the idle of the engine and the clockwork tick of the car’s relay.

Iren leaned forward, hands flat against the glass. “That’s it.”

I didn’t answer. I already knew.

We passed it once, turned at the end of the block, passed it again. On the second pass, a shadow moved behind the blackout curtain, then vanished. Could have been a trick of the lights. Could have been anything.

Two blocks down, Iren spoke for the first time. “There’s a basement entrance on the north side,” he said, voice clinical. “Exterior door, horizontal, set into the ground. The concrete around it is a different shade. Someone poured it recently.”

I looked at him. He didn’t meet my eye. He just stared at his own hands, as if the lines in his palm might decode the rest.