Family first. Monday works. Tell Ava. " Uncle Cal says hey. " Marcus put the phone face down on the table and did not say anything for a long moment and Victoria did not rush him because she understood that tell Ava. Uncle Cal says hey had just cut something out of the man that would not grow back. "Okay," Marcus said finally and his voice was flat and level and done.
Now we work fast. They worked fast. It was 5:00 and then it was 5:30 and the files were copying and Victoria was on the phone in the other room with the lawyer who hated her and Marcus could hear her voice through the wall. Could hear her doing the hardest thing he'd watched her do all day, which was apologize. "Because I was wrong about you, Diane," Victoria was saying., "That's why I'm calling.
Not because I need you. Well, yes, because I need you. I'm not going to insult you by pretending otherwise, but also because I was wrong. Eight years ago, I cut you out of the Ridgeline deal to save myself two points. And I told myself you were expendable and I was the smart one.
And you know what? You were the better lawyer. You were always the better lawyer. And I've had 8 years to know it. And I never said it and I'm saying it now.
A pause. No, don't hang up, please. Just 30 seconds. I have a recording of Adrien Cole confessing to fraud on the South Connector Bridge, the one that dropped. Four people.
And I have documents. And I have a man's whole company being stolen out from under him at the same time by the same people. And I have his 9-year-old daughter that they put in a threatening phone call this morning. And I need the meanest, most incorruptible lawyer in the state of Georgia. And I have spent 8 years being angry at you precisely because you are that person.
So, do you want to beat me Diane or do you want to win with me? Because tonight for once those are the same thing. There was a very long silence. Marcus stopped typing so he could hear and then faint through the wall he heard Victoria let out a breath she'd been holding for 8 years. "Thank you," she said. ""Two hours.
We'll have it to your office in 2 hours, Diane. " a pause. Diane, thank you. Truly. She came back into the kitchen looking 10 lb lighter and 20 years younger. And Marcus looked up from the laptop.
"She's in. " "She's in," Victoria said. And she's going to enjoy destroying Adrien roughly as much as she's going to enjoy the fact that I had to crawl to get her, which is fine. I'll crawl. I'll crawl all night if it works. She dropped into the chair across from him.
How are the copies coming? Two done. Marcus nodded at the two thumb drives on the table and the padded envelope he'd already addressed to a name Victoria had given him, a reporter at the paper who'd been trying to crack the bridge story for months and getting nowhere. Third one's copying now. Then we drive lawyer first.
She's closest. Then the mailbox for the reporter's copy. Then we hide the third one. And we come home and we lock every door in this house and we wait for morning. And Ava.
Ava's grandmother texted 20 minutes ago. Marcus' face softened for the first time in an hour. They're on the road. Ava thinks they're going to a water park in Chattanooga. She's apparently very excited about a water park.
My mother-in-law says she hasn't stopped talking about a specific water slide. His voice caught just slightly. She's safe. She's out. "Whatever happens tonight, whatever Adrien does, he can't touch her because she's 90 minutes north thinking about a water slide.
"That's the whole game," Victoria said quietly. That's the thing you did that I couldn't do for myself in 2 weeks. You got the most important thing out of reach before you started the fight. I kept the proof in a box in the city and ran around it in circles. You put your daughter in a car to another state before you even made a copy.
She shook her head slowly. You're better at this than people who do this for a living, Marcus. "I'm not better at anything," Marcus said. "I just love harder than they're expecting. That's the only edge I've got, and I'm going to use all of it.
The laptop chimed. Third copy done. Marcus pulled the drive and for one second, the whole thing felt possible, felt clean, felt like they were 40 minutes from having it all backed up and beyond Adrien's reach. And then the power went out. Every light in the house died at once.
The laptop screen went black an instant later, running on battery, throwing a small blue rectangle of light across the dark kitchen. The refrigerator's hum stopped. The whole house went silent and dark and still. Neither of them moved. Marcus, Victoria whispered.
Did you pay your Yes. His voice was very low. I pay my bill. And the rest of the street still got lights. Look out the window.
The Robinson's got lights. Miss Eta's got her porch light. It's just us. He was already standing, already moving, already reaching for the drawer where he kept the heavy flashlight. "Somebody cut my power.
Somebody walked up to the side of my house in the dark and pulled the meter or cut the line. "They're here," Victoria breathed. ""Get the drives. "" Marcus's voice had dropped into that flat calm again. The scaffold voice, the voice that got quieter as things got worse. All three and the folder and the recorder and the envelope. Everything.
Put it in the bag. Do it now. Don't turn on your phone light. Do it by feel. Victoria's hands were already sweeping the table gathering.
And Marcus moved to the front window and put his back to the wall beside it and looked out through the edge of the curtain and his heart stopped. There was a truck in his driveway. Calvin's truck. "He's here," Marcus said. Calvin's here.
His truck's in my driveway. He said 8 and it's not even 6. And he's here in the dark with my power cut. Marcus, we have to go out the back right now. There's somebody at the back.
Marcus had heard at the softest scrape of a foot on the deck. He'd built the deck. Calvin knew the gate. Calvin had the code to two of them. Him in front.
Somebody in back. "They're not here to talk. " His mind was moving fast now, faster than the fear laying out the house he'd lived in for 11 years. The house he knew in the dark better than any man alive. "Okay, listen to me. They think we're trapped.