I've been thinking about doing something with it for a long time. I just didn't know what." Cole studied her face. " Patrice," he said carefully. " Are you offering me the back room?" "
I'm offering you a partnership," she said. " The bar is mine. The back room can be yours. Whatever you build in there, you build it right and you keep it clean and you don't bring the wrong kind of attention to this address. She held his gaze and you stay.
None of this is worth anything if you disappear again in six months. The weight of that last sentence landed solidly and Cole felt it the way you feel a thing that is true and fair and that that you needed someone to say plainly. He looked at Patrice and he looked at Darnell and he looked around the bar. the ordinary imperfect genuine place that had given him 11 months of something he hadn't admitted even to himself that he needed and he said I'll stay. Darnell picked up his coffee.
There it is, he said quietly. Then the door opened again. Cole turned, expecting nothing in particular. A regular coming in early, maybe or Kira stopping by to check if the bar was open yet. What he did not expect was Agent Elena Reyes in civilian clothes, looking considerably more tired than her voice had suggested on the phone, carrying two paper cups of gas station coffee and stopping just inside the door when she saw Cole on the stool.
She looked at him for a moment. I figured you'd come back here, she said. You figured right, Cole said. She walked to the bar and sat two stools down and she set one of the paper cups in front of Cole. an offering or an acknowledgement or both.
And she looked at Patrice and said, "I'm sorry to intrude this early." " You're not intruding," Patrice said. " Coffee? I have some," Reyes said, holding up her own cup. She looked at Cole. "
Garrison's been processed. His lawyers are already working on the angle that the records were obtained improperly." She paused. They're going to argue chain of custody that someone accessed the safe before the warrant executed and that the integrity of the evidence is compromised. Cole looked at her.
Can they make that argument stick? They can make the argument. Reyes said, "Whether it sticks depends on what they can demonstrate about what happened in that facility between midnight and 6:00 a.m." She held Cole's gaze steadily. I'm not going to ask you what happened in that facility between midnight and 6:00 a.m. What I am going to tell you is that the warrant application was based on information I received via telephone verbal direct firsthand quality and that the application was reviewed and approved by a federal judge on that basis and that the records themselves were found exactly where the warrant specified. She paused.
The chain of custody on the records themselves is perfect. What his lawyers are going to argue is that the source of the information used to obtain the warrant was compromised. And what they're going to need to demonstrate that is a witness who will testify to what happened in that facility. And they don't have one. Cole said, "No, Reyes said they don't.
So the argument doesn't stick. It doesn't stick." She said, "But they're going to spend six months trying to make it stick anyway because that's what they're paid to do. I want you to be prepared for six months of noise. I can manage noise, Cole said.
Reyes looked at him. She was in her early 40s, sharp-eyed with the particular bearing of a person who has been in difficult professional situations for long enough that the difficulty no longer registers as remarkable. I know you can, she said. Then with a shift in her voice that was subtle but real, moving from professional to something more direct. Mr. Decker, the work you did last night, I want to be clear that I understand what it cost.
It didn't cost much. Cole said it cost you your cover. She said 11 months of building something quiet and stable and yours and now there are eight members of that chapter who know where you are and Harrisville knows more about you than it did 24 hours ago. And the comfortable anonymity you had is gone. She paused.
I'm not saying it wasn't the right thing. I'm saying I see what it cost. Cole was quiet for a moment. The cover was already gone, he said. Garrison's people knew where I was before last night.
The 11 months were over the moment Tuck walked through that door. All I got to choose was what to do about it. Reyes nodded. She looked at the bar at the ordinary worn surface of it at Darnell Webb and his coffee and his good coat at Patrice behind the counter. This is a good place, she said.
And she said it simply without condescension. The way you say something true that you weren't sure you were going to say. Yes, Cole said it is. Reyes stood. She picked up her coffee.
I'll keep you updated on the case. If his lawyers push hard enough on the warrant question, I may need a statement from you. Careful, limited, just covering the phone call and what you communicated and how you obtained the information you shared. She looked at him. Nothing that can't be managed.
I know how to give a careful statement, Cole said. I know you do, she said. And she held his gaze for one more moment. And in that look was the compressed and wordless acknowledgement of two people who had trusted each other in the dark and had both come out of it correctly. And then she turned and walked to the door and paused with her hand on the frame. "
Mr. Decker," she said without turning around. " Cole," he said. She almost smiled. He could hear it in the slight shift of her breath. " Cole," she said, "don't disappear again."
She left. Darnell finished his coffee and set the mug down and looked at Cole with the expression he'd been wearing since he walked in the satisfied knowing expression of a man watching something he predicted come to pass. " She likes you," he said. " She respects the work," Cole said. Same thing at a certain age, Darnell said.