Chapter 6: The Same Stamp

At five in the morning I set the two bolts side by side on the kitchen counter.

The one from Elise's desk, still in its bag.

And the one from my glove box, from the thirty-first floor of Strahan Point, snapped clean through the shank.

I'd kept one of my three. My father taught me that. You always keep one.

Same triangle. Same number. 4471.

Seven years apart.

I made coffee in his never-used machine and waited.

Anson came down at half past five in a white shirt with the sleeves still unbuttoned.

He saw the bolts from the doorway.

He stopped walking.

"Where did you get that?" he said.

"Her desk. Top drawer, all the way at the back."

I slid the bag toward him. "I opened the door. I'm sorry if I shouldn't have."

"I gave you the key."

He picked up the bag.

He held it in his scarred palm.

He read her pencil label. CROWN. NORTH SIDE.

His jaw moved.

"Did you know she had this?" I said.

"No." He set it down very carefully. "She never showed me this."

It was the truth. I could hear that it was.

I could also hear that it wasn't all of it.

I let it go, for now.

"The one on the left came out of your crown," I said. "The one on the right came out of your new tower last week."

"Same supplier, same heat, same bad steel."

"And Hayden signed for both."

"He was a project manager on Strahan Tower. Twenty-four years old." I looked at him. "Who signed the crown orders back then?"

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

"Topping-out is the Fourth of July," I said. "That's forty-three days. After that you've got fifty-two floors sitting on this."

"Then we have forty-three days."

He said "we" like it was already settled.

I liked that more than I wanted to.

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