“They were there.”
“No kidding.”
Lily leaned forward and clutched the torn back of your hoodie with one hand, as if holding the cloth together would hold you together too. “Did you get it?”
You nodded.
She closed her eyes with visible relief, like a soldier hearing the bridge hadn’t fallen yet.
“We can’t go to the cemetery,” Rebecca said. “If they followed us, it’s blown.”
You pulled out the prepaid phone and told her about the message. Her eyes widened.
“He recorded that when?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
She took a hard right and headed toward the river anyway.
The memorial park looked abandoned in winter. Bare trees clawed at the gray sky. The angel statue stood on the hill, worn smooth by time, one wing chipped, face lifted toward nothing. No one was there. Or maybe that was the problem. No one honest ever looks especially honest when you are this afraid.
Rebecca parked behind a maintenance shed and killed the engine.
“We wait until eleven fifty-five,” she said. “If no one comes, we move.”
At eleven fifty-two, a county sedan rolled slowly into the lot.
At eleven fifty-four, a woman stepped out wearing plain clothes, a wool coat, and the expression of someone who had slept too little for too long. Mid-forties. Dark hair pinned back. Alert eyes. She did not approach the car right away. She scanned the tree line, the lot, the river trail, the road behind her.
Then she lifted one hand and called, “I hate stone angels.”
Rebecca sucked in a breath.
From the back seat, Lily whispered, “That’s right.”
“What?”
“Daddy said if she says the angel is ugly, she’s the real one.”
Rebecca almost laughed from sheer nerves.
You got out first, both drives in your pocket. The detective watched you like she was counting every possible sniper nest, then relaxed by one degree when she saw Lily and Rebecca climb out after you.
“Elena Salazar,” she said. “Your father was supposed to meet me two days before the crash.”
The way she said crash told you everything.
“You knew?” you asked.
“I knew he was in trouble.” Her gaze sharpened. “Do you have it?”
You handed over the second drive first, the one from the storage unit. She slipped it into an inside pocket without checking it, which somehow made her more believable. People who know what evidence costs do not wave it around in parking lots.
“There’s more,” you said, holding up the blue drive. “Photos. account numbers. brake line pictures.”
Salazar’s jaw tightened.
