Chapter 18 - LEAH'S LIE
It was Leah.
Not the break-in.
The envelope.
She confessed the next morning.
“I sent it.”
I stared at her across my office.
“You told me you didn’t.”
“I panicked.”
“You lied to my face.”
“Yes.”
I hated how familiar that sounded.
Roman stood near the window.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
“Why?”
Leah looked at him.
“Because Luca called me.”
Roman turned.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Luca Moretti had not contacted Roman since prison.
But he had contacted his sister.
From Nevada.
He told her someone was following him.
He believed Martin Devereux was cleaning up people connected to the old network.
Luca had spent prison replaying everything Carlo told him.
The debt.
His father.
Roman.
Eventually pieces stopped fitting.
“Luca found one of our mother’s old boxes,” Leah said. “There was a copy of the Halsted photograph.”
“So you joined Savannah’s foundation?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I had already applied.”
That distinction mattered.
“My brother begged me to quit after he realized who you were.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Leah’s answer was simple.
“Because I liked the work.”
I believed her.
That made the lie hurt more.
“Why the envelope?”
“I wanted Roman to react.”
Roman’s expression darkened.
“Meaning?”
“If you threatened me, followed me, sent men after Luca—anything—I would know you hadn’t changed.”
“And?”
Leah looked almost ashamed.
“You called Agent Hall.”
I had.
Not Roman.
“That wasn’t his decision.”
“No.”
Her eyes met mine.
“That was the point.”
She had been testing us.
Our marriage.
Our behavior.
Whether the public story about Roman becoming different was real.
Roman walked toward her.
For half a second, old fear entered Leah’s face.
He stopped several feet away.
“You used my wife.”
“Yes.”
“My children work upstairs sometimes.”
“I would never hurt them.”
“You created uncertainty around their mother.”
Leah lowered her gaze.
“I know.”
Roman inhaled.
Then did nothing.
No threat.
No dismissal.
He looked at me.
“She works for you.”
A choice.
Mine.
Leah realized it too.
I hated him a little for making me decide.
And loved him for the same reason.
“You’re suspended,” I told her.
Leah nodded.
“Until we know whether Luca’s warning is real.”
“I understand.”
She turned to leave.
Then stopped.
“He gave me one more name.”
Roman looked at her.
“Whose?”
“David Kim.”
The Halsted worker.
One of the six dead men.
Except Leah had learned something two days earlier.
May you like
David Kim had not died in the fire.
The body buried under his name belonged to someone else.
