Chapter 5: Terms

I took the drive in the diner parking lot.

I did not take it the way he held it out.

I took it with my own hand open and said the terms first, so he would hear them.

"I decide what plays and when," I said. "You don't send a clip to anyone. You don't post, you don't cut, you don't ask."

"Agreed."

"And you never touch the timeline of anything with my face in it again."

"I wouldn't."

"If I say it's over, you delete your copies in front of me."

Ronan looked at the drive in my palm.

"There's a second copy," he said. "I'll tell you where it is when you ask. That's the only thing I won't promise."

"Why not?"

"Because if somebody breaks into your laptop tomorrow, you'll want a backup."

I closed my hand.

I did not thank him.

He wrote his number on the back of a diner receipt and I put the receipt in my smock pocket with the drive.

Corrine's apartment was on the fourth floor of a building with a doorman.

She had cleared a closet, put a blow-up mattress in the spare room and left a mug of tea going cold on the dresser.

"I didn't know what you drink at night," she called from the kitchen. "I guessed chamomile."

"Chamomile's good."

"I'm going to bed. Do you want anything? A phone charger? I have six."

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