Page 121 of The Trust We Broke
Outside room 314, the door is slightly ajar. I place my palm on the door to push it open but pause when I hear a voice inside.
“If you tell me where you put it, I’ll find it,” someone says.
There’s a pause. Then, “No.”
“That one word doesn’t overly help,” the same person continues. “Look, I’ll draw your office. Just point to the location, and?—”
The door creaks beneath my palm, and I push it all the way open.
Inside is a tall man, likely in his late twenties. He’s wiry, with a neat shirt, sleeves rolled up. He freezes mid-sentence, reaching for the sleek laptop case that sits open, but untouched on the bedside table.
The man blanches, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Wraith steps next to me, blocking the door.
The demeanor of the man shifts suddenly.
“Problem?” I ask.
The man shakes his head, almost a beat too late. “No. No…I was just visiting, Mr. De Bose. I’m Adam. I work at the law firm. A junior associate. We’re working on…a case. A case together. I just needed a document from Mr. De Bose. The hearing is on Wednesday.”
De Bose glances between the two of us, indecision etched on his face. Then, he nods at Adam who grabs the laptop.
I step toward him, and Adam flinches at the gesture. “I have to go. I—I—well, I have to go.”
“I feel like we should let him go before he pisses his pants,” Wraith says with a chuckle.
But, as Adam attempts to pass me, I take the laptop from his hand. “I’ll take that. We need it for our conversation. Come back for it tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” Adam says, reaching for it like he’s trying to steal a fish out of a bear’s mouth. “It has sensitive legal information on?—”
I don’t raise my voice.
I don’t have to.
I just stare at him. Dead-eyed. Calm to the bone. “I wasn’t asking.”
Adam glances at Lucy’s father, who nods in defeat. “Fine,” he says. “Should I call…security?” Adam asks bravely.
De Bose shakes his head. Furiously.
And I properly look at the man who almost sealed mine and Lucy’s fate all those years ago. His hair is graying. Dark circles ring his eyes. And though I don’t know much, medically, about a heart monitor, the number in the top right corner of the screen tells me his heart rate is accelerating.
He gestures with his hand for Adam to leave, which he does, at speed.
I promised Lucy I wasn’t gonna kill her father, but I would be fine if my presence was enough to trigger another heart attack.
“Calm the fuck down,” I say. “You can die once you’ve told me what I need.”
His eyes narrow, and I can tell he knows what I need to know. “No.”
The word sounds like he had to force it over his vocal chords.
But he presses a couple of buttons on a digital device in front of him that robotically says, “What?”
I glance at the device. It’s got boxes on it, with what look like images and category names. A bottle and glass with the category name ‘drinks.’ A skeleton with the word ‘body.’ I guess it’s an adaptive device to help him find words and speak for him.
“Must be hell, I say. “Trapped inside your head with all your secrets and no way to spill them. Kinda like being trapped in prison when you know you didn’t do the thing you’ve been found guilty of.”
