Chapter 13: Hot Water

I opened the door four inches, with the chain on, and put my face in the gap.

"Mr. Abercrombie. It's ten at night."

"Novak." He smiled his tight smile. "Thank you for being awake."

"What do you want?"

"Seven self-reports on Morvath in two weeks."

He opened the folder and held a page up to the gap.

"Every one landed inside forty minutes after you left his building."

"He's a compliant man who reports himself. That's the system working."

"It's a man who files when his caseworker walks out the door."

I said nothing.

"You never wrote up the pattern," Abercrombie said. "Not once."

"I'm not his caseworker anymore. I filed the transfer on the twenty-third."

"I know. Brenda signed it in four minutes."

His eyes moved past my shoulder to the chair by the door.

Cyrus's charcoal coat was draped over it.

"Nice coat," said Abercrombie. "Heavy wool. Not your size."

"It's a thrift store find."

"Is it?"

"Do you need a receipt?"

He closed the folder, taking his time.

"Here's how this goes, Novak. You tell Brenda yourself by Monday what happened between you and Morvath while he was your case."

"Or?"

"Or I tell her Tuesday morning, with the swipe logs, and it's a complaint instead of a conversation."

"Nothing happened."

"Then you have nothing to fear from Monday."

He went down the porch steps and got into his gray county sedan.

He sat there for a full minute with the dome light on, writing in a notebook, before he drove away.

I shut the door and put my forehead against it.

Cyrus stood in the bedroom doorway in his trousers, with his arms at his sides.

He had heard every word.

"I'll go to Brenda tonight," he said.

"No."

"I'll tell her I filed every report myself, and that you knew nothing until the twenty-second."

"No."

"They will take it out on me, not you. That's the correct place for it."

"You'd be in Containment before the weekend."

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