"Yeah," Corry said, quieter. "Yeah, you did. And frankly, that's a problem for us."
"You've put us in a really bad position," Dale said. "You've put the whole firm at risk. If this gets out, what you've been doing, of what happened to Havel, of where you were and who you were with…"
"Wait just a fucking second," I said. I hadn't gotten as far as telling them about Havel. I hadn't told them about Oxford yet. I'd gotten only as far as telling them who my principal was and that I needed their help.
Natalie turned the glass of beer between her hands. "Bridgett came by the office this afternoon. She had us call Scott."
Hell, I thought.
"She told us everything that happened," Corry said.
"No, she didn't. She told you what she thinks happened. But she's got her facts assed up."
"Is Havel dead?"
"Yes."
"Were you living with Drama for over three months?"
"Yes."
"Was it more important to you to keep Drama from the authorities than it was to report the murder of a woman who was, ostensibly, if not a friend, at least an acquaintance?"
"Where are you going with this, Corry?"
He didn't like my tone, which was understandable, I suppose, because I certainly wasn't liking his. He put his elbows on the table, leaning forward, and Scott had to adjust how he was sitting to keep his eyes on me. I still couldn't get a bead off of him, of what he was thinking.
"You've abused your friendship with everyone at this table," Corry told me. "We've spent over a quarter of a year worried sick about you, waiting for a word or a sign that you were all right. We were your friends, and you abused our friendship. Did you even consider us?"
"I thought about you guys all the time," I said. "I wasn't in a position where I could just pick up the phone and call."
"You were absent for four months, dammit! Four fucking months! You should have found a way!"
"I couldn't! God dammit, if I had she would never have trusted me! If I had you wouldn't have understood! Don't you think I fucking agonized over this?"
Corry straightened, leaning back in his seat. He moved his beer around on the table, then lifted it and drained the glass dry.
Dale said, "Did you really think we'd greet you as the conquering hero?"
"I thought you'd give me the benefit of the doubt."
"We are giving you the benefit of the doubt," Corry said. "We're here, now."
"And when we're done, is Scott going to throw me down and slap the cuffs on?"
Natalie made a delicate snort. "Oh, please."
Corry spread his hands, as if sweeping all of our words from the air. "Okay, let's just forget the personal for a second. Let's talk about the professional. Do you know what happens to us if this gets out? We lose everything we've gained, everything we've worked hard for. We're back where we were when Trent had us blacklisted. You have no idea how we had to scramble after you vanished, Atticus, you have no idea the damage control we had to do. We lost two jobs as a result of your disappearance, and there was major footwork involved in keeping three others."
"Bottom line," I said.
That made him really angry. "Yes, bottom line. And you know what? I don't think I'm in that great a minority on this. I have a wife and a child and another on the way…"
"Esme's pregnant?"
"Yes, she's three months along, and you know what, Atticus? I want to keep a roof over my family's head, I want to send my children to college, I want to keep them fed and clothed and give them the things I never had. And to do that I need money, and I'd prefer to earn that money doing something I enjoy, something I take pride in. Like it or not, KTMH is a business. You had a responsibility to that, and you abdicated it."
"Then there's a solution," I said. "Buy me out."
Natalie looked across the table at Dale. She said, "I told you."
"I'm serious," I said. "Buy me out. What you don't seem to get, Corry, is that I do understand what you're saying, I do understand your concerns, and I sure as hell do know how this could look. I don't want to see the firm die, certainly not through any action of mine."
"Then why are you doing this?" Corry demanded.
"Because I have agreed to protect this life, I agreed to do this job. And because I believe her life is worth protecting."
There was silence at the table for a minute.
"I can't do this, Atticus," Dale said, finally. "I'm sorry, man. You're my friend, we were legs together, dammit. But I cannot do this thing."
"Neither can I," Corry said.
We all looked at Natalie. "You'll sell us your share of the firm?" she asked.
"Draw it up tomorrow morning, I'll sign it tomorrow afternoon," I told her.
"Then once it's signed, I'll take the job," she said.
Both Dale and Corry opened their mouths, objections flying, but she cut them off.
"We've each got our own shares, we've each got our own jobs in the firm. I'm taking this one. But I agree with Atticus. We don't judge our principals. We protect them to the best of our abilities. That's always been the job."
"This goes bad for him, it'll be bad for you," Corry said. "And that'll be bad for us."
"If that's what happens, I'll deal with it."
Neither of them said anything. At the back of the booth, Scott hadn't moved.
Dale slid out of his seat, taking his coat from the peg on the side of the booth. He put it on and headed out of the bar. Corry followed, but he stopped while zipping up his coat.
"When it's all said and done, you know this isn't personal."
"I'm remembering when you were working for Sentinel," I said to him. "The way you hated Trent and how everything was about the bottom line."
He frowned. "If you can change, so can I."
"Hell yeah," I said.
He offered me his hand, and I shook it, then watched him walk away.
Scott cleared his throat. "Hi, remember me? I'm the guy whose face you lied in."
"I'm sorry about that, Scott."
"I figured you were, but I wanted to hear it."
"So," Natalie said. "When do we start?"
"I'm working on getting a house," I said. "She's got some connections. I want to button her up, then we'll start working this thing."
"Working it how?"
"How much did Bridgett tell you?"
Natalie looked at Scott, and Scott held up a hand, ticking off points. "Drama. Oxford. Book. Sex. Stockholm Syndrome."
"She really doesn't want to believe I'm doing this of my own volition," I said.
"She thinks you think it's your own volition, but no, she really doesn't," Natalie agreed.
"And what do you think?"
"I don't know enough."
"Scott?"
"I don't care," he said. "Gracey and Bowles have contacted me three times in the past week, wanting me to contact them if I heard from you. They said you were in trouble."
"Did you?"
"Of course not. Bridgett wasn't the only person playing detective these past months. Someone hired Oxford to do the job, and it's not just a coincidence that within days of that job going south I start being pestered for information about you. Whatever's going on here, I want to know about it. For the time being, that's more than enough incentive to make me forget who your principal is, provided everything remains on the up-and-up."
"You're thinking it was Gracey and Bowles?" Natalie asked.
"It had to be. If not them directly, someone who supervises them."
"Why?"
"I've got a theory. Not much evidence for it, but I kinda like it."
"Share," I said.
Scott adjusted his glasses, smiled again, a little embarrassed. "Look at it like this. Havel writes this book, gets a lot of attention. I mean, big-ass attention, pop-culture attention. Suddenly prime-time television is doing episodes about cops chasing professional killers, about lawyers defending assassins. There's a movie in the works. Everybody is suddenly talking about this thing that, up until a few months ago, nobody really gave much credit to.