"Do you feel guilty that I'm here?" She said it carefully, not accusingly. "Like... that I'm stuck in this place because I said something?"
He was quiet for a moment, and she could tell he was deciding whether to give her the easy answer or the real one. She watched him choose.
"Yes," he said.
She considered that. "I don't," she said, "in case you were wondering."
He looked at her.
"I'd do it again," she said. "Knowing everything, I'd still go over there and grab your jacket." She looked back at the book. "My dad said the right thing and the comfortable thing are almost never the same. You just have to pick which one you can live with."
Adrian sat with that for a long moment. "He sounds like someone I would have liked to know," he said.
"Most people liked him," she said. "He was good at listening."
Something moved across Adrian's face: a brief softening, the kind that came and went quickly in people who'd learned not to let things land too visibly. He was quiet for a beat longer than usual.
"Zuri," he said, "there's something I should tell you. Your father... some things have come up in the investigation. About where he worked. About the company he worked for."
She looked at him steadily. "What kind of things?"
"Not enough to tell you yet. When I know more, I'll tell you everything. I promise."
She studied him. Eight-year-old children were, in her experience, told a version of things, not the full shape. But Adrian Cole had a way of looking at her that was different from how most adults looked at her: like she was a person in full, not a small version of one. She decided to believe him.
"Okay," she said.
The direct attack came on a Wednesday afternoon.
Their convoy—Adrian's vehicle and a follow car—was heading back toward the rented office from a brief meeting with Hartwell three miles away when the car that had been sitting at a light two blocks back began to follow. Thomas, in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, noticed it inside forty-five seconds. He said nothing to Adrian, just made a small adjustment: not the planned route, a different one. And he watched the car adjust with them.