Page 83 of Rope Burn

"This is Kessinger."

"This is Slade Carrick."

The line goes quiet. Behind him, a television murmurs a ballgame with the sound turned low. A chair creaks, and when he speaks again, he's moved somewhere the game can't follow.

"The FBI called me last night," he says. "A woman named Torres. She talks fast."

"She does."

"She says you walked into her office on your own and talked until the sun came up. From what's on the news tonight, a lot of people are in custody because of it." Paper shuffles on his end. "She also says you spent most of a year carrying packages for a man who's facing federal charges, then crossed state lines without a travel permit and skipped your reporting. Did she get any of that wrong?"

"No."

"Then here's how it goes." He doesn't dress it up, and I respect him for it. "The warrant stays live. You surrender in person, and you're held on it until the board hears the violation. Whatever Torres and her prosecutor want to say for you, they say it at the hearing. I can't promise you what the board does."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Where do I find you?"

For a year that question meant a door coming off its hinges at dawn. My eyes go to Morgan. She's watching my face, and she keeps her hands in her lap.

"The federal building in Albuquerque," I tell him. "First thing tomorrow."

"I'll drive down tonight." He pauses. "Carrick. Don't make me come looking."

"You won't have to."

He hangs up. I set the phone face down on the nightstand. It weighs less than it has since Cheyenne.

Morgan's phone buzzes against her thigh. She reads the screen, and her mouth goes flat. She turns it so I can see.

Report to Inspection Division first thing tomorrow. Bring your credentials and Bureau-issued equipment.

"It's from Inspection," she says. "My ASAC doesn't get to hand me this one."

"Looks like we're both reporting in," I say.

"Mine's the easier building."

"Mine's the same building."

"Then we'll drive together." She sets her phone face down beside mine. "You'll let me drive for once."

"No."

She almost smiles. We'll have to leave before daylight to make it, and she knows it.

She stretches out on her side, fully dressed, with her head on my shoulder and her burned hip turned away from me. I lie on my back with my hand spread across her spine and my eyes on the ceiling.

I keep my boots on out of habit, but I don't watch the door. I sleep.

In the morning, the Albuquerque field office is sandstone and brown brick with the sun full on its face. I park in the lot behind it, where Morgan's sedan has been sitting since the night I gave my statement. Dew has dried on it in gray spots, and nobody has touched it.

Morgan goes up first. Her credentials ride inside her jacket. Her right hip looks bare without the Glock, because the county still has it in evidence. She walks through the turnstile with her shoulders square, as if she's reporting for a shift.

I take the hard chair at the end of the row, the one with the wall at its back and the front doors in view. I wait for her there.

It takes most of an hour. When the turnstile clicks again, her jacket hangs differently without the credential case inside it.