Page 46 of Rope Burn

The disclosure isn't about my career. The disclosure is about the distance between the agent who memorized Slade Carrick's file and the woman who learned his body in the dark and let him believe both of those people were the same.

"What happens to the deferral?" I ask.

"That's a decision for me and the ASAC. You're no longer part of it."

"And the investigation?"

"Continues. With your analytical work incorporated. Without your field presence."

Torres stands, the device pressed flat against her chest.

"You are off Carrick contact and all task-force activity effective immediately. I'm notifying your ASAC and referring the disclosure through the appropriate internal channel."

"Penny Jenner."

"No confirmed sighting. No plate-reader hits. The search continues."

Her gaze is steady, and the flatness in her voice carries everything the professional language strips away. "Go home, Carroll. Or don't. But you're done here."

I stand. My credentials stay in my pocket.

Recusal ends my authority over this case. The internal review will decide the rest.

The hallway is quieter than it was this morning. Two agents pass me near the stairwell, talking about a surveillance rotation in low voices. They nod. I nod back. They don't know that the woman walking past them just surrendered the operational identity she's been wearing for the better part of a year.

The lobby doors open onto afternoon heat and a parking lot that looks the same as it did this morning. The sameness is the strangest part. Nothing out here has changed.

The drive out of Albuquerque takes the remainder of the afternoon, the interstate unspooling south through the Rio Grande valley before the desert opens up and the horizon flattens to a line of brown and copper.

Morgan Engel is gone. The livestock insurance adjuster with the careful boots, the lanyard, the clipboard has been dismantled from the inside by the woman who built her. The wreckage sits in a closed file on Torres's desk.

Morgan Carroll remains. Federal agent, pulled from the case that has consumed every part of my life for months, driving south with no operational phone and no access to the investigation.

The radio is off. The highway fills the silence: tire noise on asphalt, wind pushing against the car from the southwest, the rattle of a loose bolt somewhere in the undercarriage that I keep meaning to trace. I drive with the windows cracked because the air conditioning lost its fight against the afternoon, and the dry heat that pours in smells like creosote and baked soil and the particular emptiness of country where the nearest structure is a cell tower on the horizon.

Somewhere ahead of me, the circuit is loading for an evening card. Stock handlers are pushing cattle through the alleys. Concession trailers are sending the smell of roasted corn across the lots.

Slade is there, or will be. Competing under lights, performing for the only audience that still takes him at face value. He doesn't know about the disclosure, the recusal, or the conditional terms sitting suspended in Albuquerque.

The sun drops behind the mesas and paints the hood of my car the color of old rust. I don't have a badge I can use with him. I don't have a warrant to hold over him. I don't have the operational authority to promise him anything, trade anything, or threaten anything.

Right now Slade is furious, and I know exactly how quiet he becomes when he has decided someone no longer has access to him. The worst thing he can do is listen without believing a word.

I drive south with nothing to offer him except the truth, and for the first time, whether he hears it is his choice.

13

SLADE

The call from Torres comes first. Morgan comes after.

My phone buzzes during cooldown behind the chutes. The number is unfamiliar, but the voice identifies herself as Agent Torres from the Albuquerque field office.

The message is brief and institutional: the government is prepared to discuss formal cooperation. Before any substantive interview, I should retain counsel. When I'm ready, I contact her directly. The warrant deferral is under review, and the window for a voluntary cooperation agreement is limited.

I ask one question. "Is Carroll involved?"

"Agent Carroll has been removed from all activity involving your case."