Chapter 52: The Captain's Kiss
The smell of Ruiz’s office had become familiar in a new way over the last few weeks. It wasn’t just old paper and cigars anymore. Now it held the faint, clean scent of his soap, the particular warmth of his body in the confined space. Jennifer let the door click shut behind her, the case file heavy under her arm.
“Close it,” Carlos said, not looking up from the report on his desk. He’d traded the rented Los Feliz place for a sleek modern condo in DTLA, a fact that still felt surreal. They’d been openly dating for several weeks. The department gossip mill had spun itself tired and moved on.
She flipped the lock. The metallic snick was loud in the quiet room.
He finished scrawling a signature, set his pen down, and finally looked at her. A slow, private smile touched his mouth, the kind that still sent a warm curl through her stomach. “You read the briefing?”
“Twice. The gallery owner in Culver City. Two mid-tier Expressionist pieces, but the method is what’s interesting. No broken glass, no tripped alarms. They walked right through a state-of-the-art laser grid like it wasn’t there.” She dropped the file on his desk and leaned against it, facing him. “Either an inside job or someone with access to the schematics and a hell of a jammer.”
“Or both.” He stood, coming around the desk. He moved closer, his eyes scanning the frosted glass of his office door, checking the blurred shapes of the bullpen beyond. Satisfied no one was lingering, he turned the deadbolt.
She raised an amused eyebrow at her boyfriend’s antics. “A little paranoid, Captain?”
“A little entitled, Detective,” he murmured, and then his hands were on her hips, pulling her firmly against him.
His kiss was deep, possessive, a stark contrast to the analytical conversation of moments before. It was all heat and insistence, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, his grip tightening on the curve of her ass through the fabric of her slacks. She smiled against his lips, the thrill of the risk mixing with simple want, and melted into him. Her arms went around his neck, her fingers tangling in the close-cropped gray hair at his temples.
The briefing was forgotten. The case could wait—for now.
He turned them, walking her backward until the edge of his solid mahogany desk pressed into the small of her back. A stack of folders wobbled. He didn’t seem to care. His mouth moved from her lips to her jaw, then to the sensitive spot just below her ear. She let her head fall back with a soft sigh, her hips arching into his. The desk was a chaotic landscape of paperwork, but in that moment it felt like the only stable thing in the room, grounding her as he leaned into her, his body familiar and heavy and wanted.
They kept kissing for a while, a slow, greedy exploration that tasted of coffee and mint and something uniquely him. Her hand slid inside his suit jacket, feeling the solid plane of his chest, the steady, accelerated beat of his heart. His palm was warm and broad through her blouse.
The knock was like a gunshot.
They froze, lips still a breath apart.
Three sharp, official raps on the door.
Carlos pulled back, his eyes wide and dark. He cleared his throat, his voice rough when he called out, “Just a minute!”
They scrambled apart like teenagers. Jennifer smoothed her blouse, ran a hand through her hair. Carlos adjusted his tie, his fingers fumbling slightly. He shot her a look that was equal parts frustration and amusement before unlocking the door and pulling it open.
John Ruiz stood there, his hand still half-raised to knock again. His expression was open, ready to report, until his eyes flicked past his father to Jennifer.
She knew what he saw. Her flushed skin, her lips undoubtedly swollen, the probably crooked line of her blouse. Carlos, standing too close, his own usually impeccable composure slightly ruffled.
John’s face did something complicated. The professional eagerness drained away, replaced first by confusion—a simple processing failure—then by a dawning, ugly understanding. His jaw tightened. A flicker of something raw and hot passed through his eyes before he banked it, shoving it down behind a strained neutrality. It wasn’t just confusion. It was jealousy, sharp and unmistakable, and a deep, internal conflict about seeing his father with his ex, despite being in a stable relationship with Kelly.
The silence stretched, thick enough to choke on.
“John,” Carlos said, his captain’s voice sliding back into place. “Did you need something?”
“I—yeah. The, uh, the witness statement from the Garcia hit-and-run. You said you wanted it before end of day.” John’s voice was too flat. He held out a blue folder, not stepping fully into the room.
“Right. Thank you.” Carlos took it.
John’s eyes cut to Jennifer again, just for a second. The look was a punch to the gut—betrayal, longing, disgust, all wrestled into a horrible blankness. He gave a tight, minimal nod. “Detective Wu.”
“John,” she managed, her own voice feeling alien.
“That’s all,” Carlos said, a clear dismissal.
John turned and walked away, his shoulders stiff.
Jennifer couldn’t get out fast enough. “I should… go. Start on those gallery employee backgrounds.” She grabbed the case file from the desk, not meeting Carlos’s eyes.
“Jen,” he said quietly.
“It’s fine. We’ll talk tonight.” She brushed past him, out into the buzz of the bullpen. She didn’t look toward John’s desk. She kept her eyes forward, walking with purposeful calm until she was through the double doors and into the relative sanctuary of the parking garage.
The air was cooler down there, smelling of concrete and exhaust. She leaned against her car, closing her eyes, letting the engine hum of a distant sedan fill her head. That was a mess. A professional, personal, spectacular mess. John’s face. God. She’d seen him heartbroken before, but this was different. This was layered with a kind of sickened rivalry he had no right to feel but clearly did.
She shook her head, pushing off the car. Introspection was a luxury for later. Right now, she had a job.
The gallery in Culver City was a white cube of anxiety. The owner, a man named Dryden with perpetually damp hands, wrung them as he led her past the vacant spot on the wall where a bold Franz Kline had once been.
“The police already took the system logs,” Dryden said. “I don’t know what else I can tell you.”
“Just walk me through it again. From the moment you locked up.” Jennifer’s tone was gentle but focused, a professional balm. This was her therapy.
As Dryden talked, she moved through the space, not just listening, but looking. The laser grid sensors were tiny, almost invisible nodes in the crown molding. No signs of tampering. The control panel in the back office was a sleek, touchscreen affair. The security company had already confirmed no remote bypass. An inside job seemed logical.
But her gut itched. The Eternal Collection case had taught her that logical was just what you were meant to see.
She requested the employee files again, cross-referencing them with financials Dryden was reluctant to provide. An hour of cross-referencing yielded nothing suspicious—no sudden debts, no art school dropouts with grudges.
Frustrated, she went back to the gallery floor long after Dryden had left, sitting alone in the silent, bright space. She stared at the empty wall. They’d walked through lasers. Like they weren’t there.
She got up and walked to the exact spot where the painting would have been. She looked back toward the control node in the ceiling. Then she looked down.
The floor was sealed concrete, polished to a high shine. Near the baseboard, almost invisible, was a smudge. Not dirt. A faint, grayish streak. She crouched, pulling a small evidence bag and a tweezers from her kit. It wasn’t on the floor. It was on the very bottom of the baseboard itself. She scraped gently.
Under the bright beam of her pocket flashlight, the residue on her tweezers had a faint, metallic sheen. Graphite. Like from a pencil.
But not for drawing. For conductivity.
A memory clicked. Felix, the restorer from the Eternal Collection case, ranting over coffee about old masters and new thieves. “The real pros, they don’t hack the software. That leaves a trail. They listen to the hardware. Every electrical pulse in a wire, it creates a tiny magnetic field. You can map it. You can mimic it. With the right emitter, you can make a system see a closed door as forever closed, or an open path as never broken.”
Her heart started to pound a different rhythm. This wasn’t a simple inside job. This was a precision strike. The graphite streak was likely from a custom-made conductive pencil used to temporarily bridge or map a circuit on the baseboard wiring, something a rushed installer might have tucked there and forgotten. It was a footprint. A specific, technical footprint.
She bagged the sample, her hands steady now, all thoughts of office awkwardness gone. This was a thread. Thin, but real.
As she stood, her phone buzzed. A text from Carlos.
Dinner? My place.
Simple. Normal. An attempt to reset.
She typed back, Can’t. Evidence lead. Might be late.
She stared at the screen for a second, then added, John okay?
The three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then appeared again.
He’ll manage. We all will. Be careful.
She put the phone away, the weight of the day settling back over her shoulders, but now with a new, sharp point of focus. She looked at the tiny bag in her hand. This wasn’t just graphite.
It was the beginning of a new pattern. And she had a terrible feeling she knew what, or who, the pattern might eventually trace back to. The ghost of Alistair Finch seemed to laugh in the empty, stolen space of the gallery.
The ghost of Alistair Finch seemed to laugh in the empty, stolen space of the gallery. Jennifer stood perfectly still, the graphite sample clutched in her fist, until the sensation passed and left only a cold, professional clarity. She needed to run this trace through the specialized database from the Eternal Collection case, the one that catalogued tools and signatures of high-end art thieves.
Her phone vibrated against the concrete floor where she’d set it, skittering slightly. The screen glowed with a blocked number. She snatched it up, thumb hovering over the decline button, but her intuition prickled. “Wu.”
“The graphite is from a Berol 314, Detective. A drafting pencil discontinued in 1998.” The voice was a warm, cultured baritone she hadn’t heard in months, yet recognized instantly. It felt like ice water trickling down her spine. “I always preferred them for schematic work. The lead consistency is unparalleled.”
Jennifer’s free hand went to her sidearm, her eyes scanning the gallery’s shadows. “Finch.”
“In the digital flesh, as it were.” He sounded amused, almost avuncular. “I must say, your work in New York was admirably disruptive. It forced a delightful period of reinvention. I’ve been enjoying Los Angeles immensely. The light is so much kinder to the colors.”
“Where are you?” She kept her voice low, moving silently toward the gallery’s entrance, peering out at the deserted Culver City street. Nothing moved.
“Oh, everywhere and nowhere. But I wished to thank you. Your persistence has elevated the game.” There was a soft click, like a pen being set down. “The Kline and the Rothko were merely conversation starters. A way to get your attention. The real acquisition is already complete.”
“What acquisition?”
“The ‘Untitled Abstract’ by Lynette Faye. It left John Chen’s climate-controlled storage facility in Monterey Park approximately twenty-seven minutes ago.” He paused, letting the information settle. “You recovered it once for him. A pity. This time, the custody change is permanent.”
John’s painting. The one that had started it all. A hot rush of anger tightened her throat. “You son of a—”
“Tut, Detective. Martyrdom is so passé.” His tone hardened, the pleasantries evaporating. “I’m calling to offer a trade. A simple one. You cease your quaint investigation into these petty gallery jobs. You accept that some beauty is destined for private appreciation. In return, I provide the location of the Faye piece before it vanishes into a container ship bound for Jakarta. You can be the hero again for your young friend. Everyone wins.”
She reached her car, yanking the door open. “And if I don’t?”
“Then the painting is gone. And I will reintroduce myself to your life in ways that are… less philosophical.” The line hummed for a second. “I’ve so enjoyed observing your new romance. Captain Ruiz seems a steadfast man. It would be a shame to see that stability tested.”
The threat was direct, intimate, and vile. She started the engine, the roar loud in the quiet garage. “You touch him, and I’ll—”
“You’ll do what? Hunt me? You already are.” He sighed, a sound of genuine disappointment. “I’ll text you an address. You have one hour to decide whether to come alone and discuss terms, or to mobilize your cavalry and guarantee the painting’s loss. Choose wisely, Jennifer.”
The call died.
A second later, her screen lit up with a map pin dropped in the industrial maze near the Port of Los Angeles.
Her first instinct was to call it in. Swarm the location with every available unit. Her thumb hovered over Carlos’s contact. But Finch’s words coiled in her mind. You mobilize your cavalry and guarantee the painting’s loss. He’d see them coming. He always did. The painting—John’s painting, her previous victory—would be shredded or sunk in the deep harbor before the first black-and-white turned onto the street.
And the threat against Carlos wasn’t abstract. Finch had watched them. He knew.
“Damn it,” she whispered to the empty car.
She put the car in gear, tires squealing on the slick garage concrete. She headed for the freeway, not toward the station, but east, toward the port. As she drove, she tapped her Bluetooth, calling Scott’s number in New York. It went straight to voicemail. He was probably asleep. She didn’t leave a message.
Next, she called the one person whose technical brain she needed. Kelly Chen picked up on the third ring, background noise suggesting a crowded restaurant. “Jen? What’s up?”
“I need a favor. No questions. Can you access the old Eternal Collection evidence server? The tool signature database?”
A beat of silence. The background noise faded, as if Kelly had stepped outside. “From my personal laptop? Maybe. It’s a stretch. What am I looking for?”
“A graphite signature. Specific pencil. A Berol 314.” Jennifer weaved through traffic, her eyes flicking between the road and the glowing pin on her passenger seat. “Cross-reference it with any other thefts, globally, in the last six months. Anything that didn’t fit the local pattern.”
“Berol 314. Got it.” Kelly’s voice was focused, professional. “This about the Culver City job?”
“It’s about everything. And Kelly? Don’t log the request through the department server. Keep it quiet.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Jen, are you off the reservation? Should I be calling John or—”
“Don’t call anyone. Please. Just get me the data. I’ll explain later.” She heard the desperation in her own voice.
“Okay,” Kelly said slowly. “Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up. Be careful, whatever you’re doing.”
The call ended. Jennifer gripped the wheel. The freeway lights strobed overhead, casting fleeting illumination into her moving capsule. She thought of Carlos, alone in his new condo. She thought of John’s shattered expression in the office. This was how Finch worked—he didn’t just steal art; he splintered connections, exploited loyalties, turned personal stakes into operational weaknesses.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Carlos.
> You sure you’re okay? John’s been pacing a hole in the bullpen.
She typed back with one thumb.
> Following a hunch on the gallery job. Tell him to go home to Kelly. All good.
The lie sat bitter on her tongue.
The industrial zone near the port was a cathedral of shadows and chain-link. Towering cargo containers were stacked like giant, rusted bricks, creating canyon walls that swallowed sound. She killed her headlights a block away, rolling forward on idle until the map indicated she’d reached the pinned location: a single-story corrugated metal warehouse with a roll-up door slightly ajar.
A single sodium vapor lamp buzzed and flickered overhead, painting the cracked asphalt in sickly orange. No cars. No movement.
This was either the world’s most obvious trap or a deliberately staged empty stage. Finch wanted her here, alone. She sat in the dark car, engine off, listening to the metal groan in the wind off the water. The smell of salt, diesel, and decay filled her nostrils.
Her service weapon felt heavy on her hip. Going in blind was suicide. But turning back meant letting Finch win this round, and possibly putting Carlos directly in the crosshairs. He’d promised to test that stability. She believed him.
She got out of the car, the door clicking shut with a sound absurdly loud in the immense quiet. The wind tugged at her blazer. She approached the warehouse, her hand resting on her gun’s grip, and paused beside the partially open door.
“Finch!” Her shout was swallowed by the vast space inside.
Only echoes answered. She used her phone’s flashlight, spearing the darkness. The beam illuminated emptiness, dusty concrete floors, and, in the very center of the space, a single wooden crate. It was about the size of a large suitcase. No packaging labels. Just raw, unfinished pine.
She stepped inside, the beam dancing over the walls. No ambush. No ticking clock. Just the crate.
She knelt beside it. A crowbar lay on the floor nearby, as if left for her. Hesitating only a second, she wedged the tool under the lid and pried. The nails screamed as they gave way.
Inside, nestled in unbleached cotton batting, was the Lynette Faye abstract. The vibrant, chaotic swirls of blue and gold were unmistakable. It was here. He’d actually left it. A wave of cold disbelief washed over her. This wasn’t a recovery; it was a delivery.
Taped to the front of the canvas was a square of elegant, linen paper. In precise fountain pen script, it read:
‘A token of good faith. The game is more satisfying with a worthy opponent. Keep the pencil. Pursue the gallery thief if you must—a mere apprentice dabbling in my methods.'
- A.F.
She stared at the words, then at the painting. The ‘apprentice’ theory fit. The graphite was a copycat signature, a fan trying to emulate the master.
Her phone vibrated in her hand. A new email from Kelly, with several attachments.
The warehouse air felt suddenly thinner. Jennifer tucked the phone under her chin, her light still fixed on Finch’s elegant, taunting script. Look closer to home.
She opened Kelly’s email.
The email’s subject line was blank. The body contained only three bullet points from Kelly, each a detached fact that landed like a physical blow.
Berol 314 graphite signature matched to two prior thefts: a Miró sketch from a private vault in Bel Air (six months ago), and a pre-Columbian gold artifact from the Getty storage annex (four months ago).
Both cases were considered internal/security failures. No outside suspects ever generated.
Security system schematics for all three locations—Bel Air vault, Getty annex, Culver City gallery—were digitally accessed using department credentials assigned to the Central Division evidence archive. Last accessed six weeks ago by: Detective John Ruiz.
Jennifer’s breath fogged in the cold warehouse air. The phone’s glow made her face look ghostly in the darkness surrounding the single painting.
John.
Not an apprentice. A copycat. Using Finch’s signature method, but clumsily, leaving the graphite smudge. Accessing files he shouldn’t. The hopeful junior detective with the childhood crush, wanting to see the best in everyone. Except maybe himself.
The timeline unspooled in her mind with terrible clarity. The Bel Air theft was just before the Eternal Collection case blew up. The Getty job was during the chaos afterward. John had been desperate, adrift after their ‘break,’ trying to prove something, to himself or to her. He’d been studying the Finch case files, obsessed. He’d seen the method. And then he’d tried to use it.
The gallery job was his third attempt. He was getting better, but he’d panicked, left a trace. And now Finch was using him as a pawn, a distraction, waving his failures in her face to draw her attention away from whatever bigger game he was really playing.
A sour taste filled her mouth. She thought of John’s expression in the office—the jealousy, the hurt. That wasn’t just about her and Carlos. It was the guilt of a man watching his secrets circle closer.
Her phone rang, shrill and sudden in the silent warehouse. The screen illuminated: CARLOS.
She stared at it, the painting at her feet, Kelly’s damning email still open. The two worlds—the personal disaster and the professional one—collided in that ringing tone. She accepted the call, raising the phone to her ear but saying nothing.
“Jen?” His voice was tight, stripped of its usual warm rumble. “Where are you?”
She swallowed, her throat dry. “Following a lead. I have the Faye painting.”
A beat of silence. “You have it? How? Where?”
“Finch called me. He left it for me in a warehouse by the port. A ‘token of good faith.’” She heard the hollow disbelief in her own voice.
“Jesus Christ, Jennifer. He called you? And you went alone? After what he just threatened?” Anger and fear warred in his tone. “That was incredibly reckless.”
“It was a calculated risk. He wanted to talk. He wanted to trade.” She looked down at the painting, at Finch’s note. “He says the gallery jobs are a copycat. An apprentice.”
“Who?”
The name sat on her tongue, heavy and toxic. She couldn’t say it. Not yet. Not over the phone. “I need to verify some data. Kelly’s helping.”
“Kelly.” He processed that. “Does John know you’re involving his girlfriend in a side investigation?”
The question was a knife twist. “It’s not a side investigation. It’s the same investigation. It’s all connected.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Carlos, I need you to do something. Without asking why.”
“What?” His caution was palpable.
“Pull John’s recent activity logs. Specifically his digital accesses to the old Eternal Collection evidence files and the central evidence archive. Do it quietly. Don’t alert him.”
The silence on the other end stretched so long she thought the call had dropped. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, gravelly with dread. “Jennifer. What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you I found a specific physical signature at the gallery scene. That signature links to two older, unsolved thefts. The system schematics for all three targets were accessed by John’s credentials.” She forced the words out, clinical and clean. “It’s a pattern. He’s the copycat.”
Carlos made a sound, a choked exhalation that was pure pain. A father’s pain. She pictured him in his sterile new condo, the world he knew dissolving. His son. His department. His… her.
“No,” he said, but it wasn’t a denial. It was a refusal of the reality taking shape. “There’s an explanation. There has to be. Someone could have used his login. He’s sloppy with his password, he—”
“Carlos.” Her interruption was gentle but firm. “You asked what I was telling you. That’s what the evidence says. We need to know why. We need to talk to him before this spirals any further, and before Finch decides to use this against us, too.”
Another silence, thicker this time. She heard the faint clink of glass, maybe a decanter. “He’s not at home. Kelly said he never came home from the shift. He’s not answering his phone.”
A new layer of cold seeped into her bones. “Find him.Please. Find him and bring him in. Don’t let him run. Not toward this, and not away from it.”
“And what are you going to do?” His question was accusatory.
“I’m going to secure this painting. Then I’m going to find out who Finch’s ‘apprentice’ really is.” She looked at the note again. Look closer to home. Finch wasn’t just taunting her about John. He was implying the rot was within her own circle, her own trust. “We’ll meet at the station. The secondary interview room. Not your office.”
“My office is fine,” he said, the captain reasserting himself through the personal shock.
“Your office has a window John can see into from the bullpen,” she countered softly. “Use the interview room.”
He didn’t argue. “Thirty minutes,” he said, and hung up.
The dial tone buzzed in her ear. She lowered the phone, the warehouse silence rushing back in, now felt like a held breath. She carefully re-crated the painting, her movements precise despite the tremor in her hands. The note from Finch she slipped into an evidence bag, sealing the arrogant script away from the corrosive air.
As she hefted the crate, her phone buzzed again with a text. Not from Carlos. From Scott Harding in New York.
> Heard whispers. A high-end fence in Macau is suddenly shopping a collection of Renaissance drawings no one knew was missing. The description matches a private haul in Zurich that hasn’t been reported stolen yet. Finch is already moving on. Bigger targets.
She stared at the words. The ‘apprentice’ jobs here were small change, a smokescreen. While she chased graphite ghosts and a heartbroken junior detective, Finch was already executing his real plan continents away. He’d handed her a puzzle labeled ‘John’ to keep her busy.
And she’d taken it.
The crate felt heavier. She carried it out to her car, the weight of the art, the weight of the betrayal, the weight of the manipulation, all settling onto her shoulders. She opened the trunk and placed the crate inside, next to her standard-issue go-bag.
As she slammed the trunk shut, her headlights swept across the warehouse’s facade. For a split second, she saw a figure standing between two stacks of containers a hundred yards away. Silhouetted by the distant port lights. Motionless.Watching.
She froze, her hand going to her weapon.
The figure didn’t move. Then, slowly, it raised a single hand. Not a wave. A mirror of Finch’s gesture from the boat in Oyster Bay. A dismissive, familiar salute.
Then it melted back into the shadow between the containers and was gone.
Jennifer stood by her car, her heart hammering against her ribs. It wasn’t Finch. The build was wrong. Too lean, too young.
Look closer to home.
She yanked open the driver’s door, shoved the key into the ignition, and peeled out onto the deserted service road, the tires spitting gravel. In her rearview mirror, the warehouse shrank, a dark mouth in the industrial landscape, secrets still coiled inside.
She had the painting. She had the data. She had a suspect who was also a victim. And she had the chilling certainty that she was still playing Finch’s game, running down the path he’d laid out for her, while the real theft was happening somewhere else, in the dark, far away from her reach.
But knowing that and breaking the game were two different things. The only way out was through.
---
The secondary interview room was a box of institutional gray. A single metal table bolted to the floor, four matching chairs, a two-way mirror that had seen more confessions than most priests. Carlos stood with his back to the glass, arms crossed, the lights dimmed to a soft, almost forgiving hum. He hadn't touched the coffee Jennifer had brought him twenty minutes ago. It sat on the table, a faint curl of steam still rising above the Styrofoam rim, growing weaker by the second.
Jennifer leaned against the far wall, the evidence bag with Finch's note lying flat on the table between them.
The fluorescent light above her buzzed like an angry hornet, casting long shadows over the worn vinyl floor. The weight of the past hour—Finch's call, the warehouse, Carlos's call—pushed down on her shoulders like a physical force.
Carlos turned slowly, his face a mask of controlled exhaustion. The lines around his eyes looked deeper than she remembered. "You're letting him get inside your head," he said quietly. "Finch. Always did have a flair for the dramatic."
Jennifer pushed off the wall, stepping closer to the table. "He's not just being dramatic this time. He's manipulating us. All of us." She tapped the evidence bag with one fingernail.
"He wanted me to see the graphite. He wanted me to make the connection. John's our apprentice."
Carlos exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. The fluorescent light seemed to hollow out his face even more. "There’s an explanation. Kid’s smart but reckless. He’s trying to impress someone. Us. The guild. Doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t sell out to Finch."
Jennifer didn’t answer right away. She watched Carlos, really watched him. Captain Ruiz—old-school, loyal, the one who’d pulled strings to get her badge in the first place. He believed in redemption. Always had. Even when the evidence stacked up against someone, he defaulted to trust.
That’s what made him a good captain. It made him human. It also made him vulnerable. Right now, she was the danger in the room.
She reached out, her fingers brushing the evidence bag, flipping it so Finch’s note faced Carlos. He didn’t reach for it.
Instead, his gaze lingered on the paper, the fountain pen script, the neat line of John’s name unspoken but hanging in the gray air between them.
She assures Carlos they’ll prove John was framed. But they agree he needs to be moved to a safehouse for his safety.
Carlos’s jaw tightened, the muscle along his temple flexing like coiled wire. “We find him first. Before Finch does. Before anything else happens.” His voice carried the quiet authority of command, the same tone that had once quelled riots in East LA, the same tone that had quieted Jennifer’s teenage tantrums when she’d been John’s babysitter all those years ago.
Jennifer nodded, pushing off from the wall. The motion sent a jolt of adrenaline through her limbs, sharp and electric. “I’ll call the usual safehouse. Quiet extraction. No paper trail.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, thumb hovering over the screen.