Chapter 3
Static hissed after the recording ended.
Gabriel stood in the cigar lounge, staring into the camera as if my face could give him an easier answer.
"I didn't make that call," I said.
Sloane set the tablet down. "The hotel phone log puts it at eleven forty-two."
Eleven forty-two.
The florist's van did not block the north alley until twelve-sixteen.
I changed the route after that.
At eleven forty-two, there was no south route to leak.
I let the number sit between us.
If I corrected her now, she could call it a mistake.
I needed her to believe I had missed it.
"Where is the blue staff binder?" she asked.
"No."
It held home numbers, emergency contacts, and private medical notes.
Elaine's son's number was inside because he was the person to call if her blood sugar dropped.
Otis had trusted me with his wife's number after a ladder accident.
In Sloane's hands, those were not contacts.
They were people to threaten.
"You're choosing this room over a binder?"
"I'm choosing my staff over you."
"That is why Gabe comes to me when you make everything personal," she said.
"You are counting down my panic in a locked room. It is personal."
Her gaze dropped to my hands.
"Gabriel told me you don't like rooms without windows."
"Gabe and I don't keep secrets," she said. "We were family before he knew your name."
My nails pressed into my palms.
"He told me about the wine cellar," she said. "You were nine. The power failed. Six hours before your father found you."
On the monitor, Gabriel closed one hand around the back of his chair.
Sloane took another step.
"He said you count to eight when you can't breathe."
Three years earlier, Gabriel had sat on our bathroom floor during a blackout.
He held up one finger, then two, until I could match my breathing to his hand.
The next morning, he put battery lights in every room.
"Nobody else needs to know," he had said.
Sloane raised one finger.
"One."
Air stopped high in my chest.
"Two."
The camera blurred.
I pressed my thumbnail into my palm and looked at Gabriel.
He knew exactly what she was doing.
"Give her the binder," his voice came through the speaker. "We can end this."
It was the same phrase he used when a debtor needed frightening or a vendor needed replacing.
He had never used it for me.
"Why did you tell her?" I asked.
Gabriel opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Sloane picked up her tablet and walked to the door.
It opened just long enough for her to step through.
She looked back once before the steel shut between us.
She did not look worried.
The lock turned again.
Then something inside the wall clicked.
The steady hum above me died.
A paper strip caught in the vent stopped moving.
Sloane had left me alone before she shut off the air.