Chapter 4: Someone on the Inside
The car stopped in front of a building that had no signage and a door that required a keycard.
Julian held it open.
She walked through.
Inside: a corridor, fluorescent light, a second door.
Beyond that, a room that looked like it had been designed to be used and forgotten — four chairs, a table, a window with the blinds drawn.
A man was already seated at the table.
Late forties, close-cropped gray hair, a jacket that was slightly too formal for the room.
He stood when Julian entered.
He did not look at Mara.
"Reyes," Julian said.
"We pulled the phone record," the man said.
"The number that messaged her — it's a burner.
Activated three hours ago."
"Before tonight."
"Two hours before the reservation was made." Reyes glanced at Mara now.
Briefly.
The kind of glance that categorized and moved on.
"Someone knew the dinner was happening before it was on the books."
Julian sat down.
He didn't invite Mara to sit.
She sat anyway.
"Who books the reservations?" she said.
Both men looked at her.
"For Table Twelve," she said.
"Who made the call?"
Reyes said: "That's not your —"
"My assistant," Julian said.
"Elena.
She's been with me four years."
"Has she ever been compromised before?"
A pause.
The kind that answered the question before the words did.
"There was an incident," Julian said.
"Eight months ago.
We looked into it.
It was assessed as coincidence."
"Reassess it," Mara said.
Reyes set a folder on the table.
He opened it without looking at her.
Inside: printed phone records, a photograph of a woman in her thirties — dark hair, professional clothes, the practiced smile of someone who had learned to perform competence — and a series of timestamps.
"Elena Voss," Reyes said.
"She made the reservation at 6:14 PM.
The burner phone was activated at 6:02 PM."
The room was quiet.
Julian looked at the photograph for a long time.
"Where is she now?" he said.
"Her apartment.
We have eyes on it."
"Does she know that?"
"No."
Julian closed the folder.
"Don't move on her yet.
If she's passing information, I want to know who she's passing it to."
"And if she runs?"
"She won't run.
She doesn't know we know." He looked at Mara.
"How did you know to ask about the reservation?"
"Because the man at Table Nine was already positioned when I noticed him," she said.
"He wasn't watching the door waiting for you to arrive.
He was watching Table Twelve.
Which means he knew where you'd be sitting before you sat down."
Reyes looked at Julian.
Something passed between them.
"She's right," Reyes said.
It sounded like it cost him something to say it.
"I know," Julian said.
A knock at the door.
One of the men from outside leaned in.
"Cross.
We have a problem."
Julian stood.
"What kind?"
"The kind that has a name.
Vasquez is on the phone.
He says he wants to talk directly.
Tonight."
The name landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Reyes went very still.
Julian's expression did not change, but his hand moved to the back of his chair and gripped it once, briefly, then released.
Mara filed the name away.
Vasquez.
"Tell him thirty minutes," Julian said.
The man nodded and left.
Julian looked at Mara.
"You should eat something.
It's going to be a long night."
"Who is Vasquez?"
"The man who hired the person you interrupted."
"The someone above him."
"Yes."
"And he wants to talk to you directly."
"He wants to find out how much I know about tonight.
And whether I know who warned me." Julian picked up the folder.
"Which means he doesn't know it was you yet.
He thinks it was someone at my table."
Mara understood what that meant.
As long as Vasquez thought the warning had come from inside Julian's circle, she was invisible.
The moment he learned it had come from a waitress who read rooms, the photo on the phone became something worse.
"How long do I have?" she said.
"Until he figures out it wasn't one of my people." Julian looked at her steadily.
"Which, once he starts asking questions, will not be long."
"So what do we do?"
"We give him a different answer before he finds the real one."
"You're going to lie to him."
"I'm going to manage his information.
There's a difference."
"Is there?"
He almost smiled again.
The same almost as before — present and then gone.
"Get some food," he said.
"Reyes will stay with you.
Don't open any doors and don't answer your phone."
He left.
Reyes sat back down.
He did not offer food.
He did not speak.
Mara looked at the closed folder on the table.
Elena Voss's photograph was inside it.
A woman who had been trusted for four years and had spent at least some of those years passing information to a man named Vasquez.
She thought about trust.
About how long it took to build and how quickly it could be used against you.
She thought about her own locker at Carver's.
The photograph of her sister still taped inside.
Her phone buzzed again.
She looked at it.
The message was from her sister's number.
Three words.
May you like
*Someone's outside.
Mara.*
