Her Birthday Celebration Was My Exit novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Footage

Through the pizza window I could see Ryder watching me.

Sunny was stacking pepperoni into a tower.

"Them," I said.

"What?"

"You asked who they'll believe. Them. The people with your signature in a binder."

Lisetta stopped smiling. I could hear it.

"You have until my birthday, Captain. After that, the offer's gone."

She hung up.

I went back inside and sat down and finished my slice.

My hand was steady. It's always steady.

Ryder looked at my face and didn't ask in front of Sunny.

In the truck, after Sunny fell asleep against the window, I told him.

"Record her," he said. "Next time she calls. Get it all."

"No."

"Ilaria."

"I'm not playing her game. I've been playing other people's games for four years." I watched the streetlights go by. "I'm going to do the boring thing. I'm going to tell the truth to the people with badges, all of it, and let them do their jobs."

He was quiet for a block.

"That's the scariest thing I've ever heard you say."

"Scarier than the whiteout?"

"In the whiteout you had an airplane."

On Monday morning I sat in the Bering Freight conference room across from the woman agent.

She'd flown up on the red-eye. Her coat was the wrong kind for February.

The chief pilot sat at the end of the table again with her arms folded.

"She called you," the agent said.

"Thursday night. From Miami." I gave her the number and every word, in order.

The agent wrote it down. "Anything else?"

"Yes."

I had thought about it every night since December.

"Remo has a storage unit in Schaumburg."

The agent's pen stopped.

"Pull the gate cameras for December third, three in the morning," I said. "Two silver cases came out of that unit. Remo told me on the phone that night he'd never seen them before."

"When did they go in?"

"I don't know. I landed her in Chicago on October third. I'd guess the next day."

The agent sat back.

"A storage facility," she said slowly, "has cameras."

"Probably."

"Cameras on the gate. Cameras in the halls." She looked at me. "Why didn't you tell us this in December?"

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