Chapter 3: The Name She Was Never Supposed to Know
His name was Garrett.
She had learned that in her third week at the Callahan estate.
Not because anyone introduced them.
Because she had seen the way the household staff went quiet when he walked through a room.
The way Mrs.
Callahan's personal assistant would find somewhere else to be.
The way even the security guards — men who carried themselves like they owned the ground they stood on — would give him a half-step of extra space.
Garrett did not work for the Callahans the way a lawyer works for a client.
He worked for them the way a lock works for a door.
He sat across from her now with his hands flat on the table and his expression arranged into something that was almost patience.
"I'm going to ask you one more time," he said.
"Where is the second copy?"
She looked at the photo still sitting between them.
The child in the garden.
The pencilled words on the back.
"Who sent this?" she said.
"That's not relevant to your situation."
"It is to me."
Garrett tilted his head slightly.
"You're not in a position to be curious right now."
"And yet." She kept her eyes on his.
"Someone in that house sent me a warning.
Someone who knows what's in that box.
And it wasn't you, or you wouldn't be sitting here asking me questions."
Something moved behind his eyes.
Not quite anger.
Closer to recalculation.
"The child is not your concern anymore," he said.
"Your concern is the next forty-eight hours of your life.
Co-operate, and they look very different."
"Different how?"
He reached into his jacket and set a single folded document on the table.
He did not push it toward her.
He simply left it there.
"Charges dropped.
Full release.
A reference letter from the Callahan Family Foundation — which, I can tell you from experience, opens doors that most people spend their entire careers trying to reach."
She did not touch the document.
"And the child?" she said.
"Placed appropriately.
With people who have the resources to provide properly."
"You mean people the Callahans control."
"I mean people who are qualified." His voice stayed level.
"Which, I think we both understand, you are not."
She looked at the document.
Then back at him.
"I want to speak to a lawyer."
"You have that right, of course." He picked the document back up and folded it once, precisely, and returned it to his jacket.
"Though I'd encourage you to think carefully before you make this more complicated than it needs to be.
The Callahans are very patient people." He stood.
"But their patience does have a shape."
He walked to the door.
Knocked twice.
Then he stopped, his back still to her.
"The room they found," he said quietly.
"It was the one behind the east kitchen, wasn't it.
The one the groundskeeper used to store the irrigation equipment before they renovated."
She said nothing.
"We found the box," he said.
"We found the drive inside it.
Our technician is working on it now." He paused.
"The copy we're looking for is the backup.
The one you made before you hid the first."
The door opened from the outside.
"Sleep on it," Garrett said.
"I'll be back in the morning."
The door closed.
She sat very still.
He had told her two things he hadn't meant to.
The first: they had the drive, but they couldn't open it.
The second: they didn't know the backup wasn't a copy at all.
May you like
It was the original.
And it was not in any room on the Callahan estate.
