He had died overseas. The official word from the contractor company was an accident: a vehicle accident during a logistics run in a region where accidents happened. There had been paperwork, condolences, a small life insurance payment that had not been enough and had run out. Renee didn't talk about it much because talking about it made her cry, and Renee did not like to cry.
Zuri had always felt that the word accident sat wrong. It had a shape that didn't fit, like a key that turned but didn't unlock anything. She hadn't known what to do with that feeling at five, or six, or seven. She was eight now, and she still didn't know what to do with it. But she held it carefully, the way you hold something you don't want to drop.
It was early evening when Adrian Cole arrived at the apartment himself.
Zuri had not expected that. She'd expected Thomas, or Patricia, or another calm professional with a tablet and a practiced tone. She had not expected the man who ran Cole Dynamics to take the elevator to the fourteenth floor personally, knock on the door himself, and come in carrying two cups of coffee and a juice box.
He handed the juice box to Zuri without making a production of it. He sat across from Renee at the kitchen table and was direct in a way that seemed to be simply how he communicated: not brutal, but undecorated. He told her the device had been confirmed. He told her the two men were being sought. He told her that he took the threat seriously, that he took Zuri's safety seriously, and that he intended to see this through properly. Renee had a lot of questions; he answered every one of them.
When Renee excused herself to use the restroom—Zuri suspected she needed a minute to collect herself, which was something Renee did in private—Adrian Cole looked across the table at Zuri.
"How do you know Russian?" he asked.
"My dad taught me." She picked at the edge of the juice box. "He worked overseas. He said learning pieces of a language was like learning pieces of a person. You understand more than they think you do."
Something moved across Adrian's face—not quite a smile, but close. "He was right."
"He died," she said. Not to wound, just because it was true, and she didn't see a reason to avoid true things. "Three years ago."
"I know. Thomas pulled your family's background this afternoon. Standard procedure. I'm sorry about your father."
She nodded.
"That phrase you heard," he said. "You were certain?"
"I heard it twice. The second time was clearer." She looked at him evenly. "I know I'm eight."
"I know you are, too." He said it without any of the dismissiveness she'd been bracing for. "I was twelve when someone told me something important that nobody believed. It didn't go well."
She waited.