“I’m going to Phoenix tomorrow,” she said. “Everything goes to the journalist, the district attorney’s office, and the land records attorney I spoke to last week. When it comes out — and it will — I’ll be there.”
Fausto stared at her.
For the first time, she saw in his face the thing she had been looking for since she walked out of the correctional facility’s front gate six days ago. Not guilt — she didn’t expect guilt from him. Not remorse.
Just fear.
Real, unmanaged, undisguised fear.
Which told her that what they had found in that box was exactly as significant as Don Teodoro had believed it was.
“You won’t make it to Phoenix,” Fausto said.
He said it quietly, almost conversationally, which was worse than if he had shouted it. A threat delivered quietly by a man who has resources is a different category of threat.
She understood what she was holding.
She understood what it meant that he had come up this hill personally, at night, with men.
She tightened her hand around the USB drive.
And then, from somewhere down the road below — from the direction of the main highway, distant but getting less distant — came the sound of a siren.
One.
Then two.
Fausto heard it.
She watched his face.
She watched the calculation happening in real time — whether to move, whether to stay, whether the men behind him were going to hold their position when sirens were getting louder.
They were not.
