Chapter 7

The file was open on the desk when Reid walked in.

He didn't knock. He never knocked. Twenty years and it had never once been discussed because there was nothing to discuss — it was simply how things were between them, the way certain things between certain people became simply true without anyone deciding them.

He sat down across from Zachary. Looked at the file. At the name on the tab. Then at Zachary.

He didn't say anything immediately.

"You read it," he said finally.

"Yes."

"All of it."

"Yes."

Reid was quiet for a moment. "You never read anyone's file."

"I read everyone's file."

"Not like this." He looked at the desk. "Not at eleven at night."

Zachary closed the file and set it to one side. "He called her yesterday. And the day before."

"That's her business."

"He spent two years—"

"Zachary." Reid's voice was careful. Even. "What are you going to do with this?"

Silence.

"Nothing," Zachary said.

"Then why did you read it?"

He didn't answer that.

Reid looked at him for a long moment. The kind of look that had twenty years of knowing someone in it — twenty years of bad news and three a.m. calls and watching someone you respected make decisions you disagreed with and saying nothing because you knew them well enough to know the decision was already made.

"This was supposed to be controlled," Reid said.

"It is controlled."

"Is it?"

Zachary stood. Walked to the window. The city below going about its Tuesday morning completely indifferent to everything happening on this floor.

"She hasn't responded to him," he said. "Either time."

"I know."

"He's in New York."

"I know." Reid stood too. Came to stand beside him. "Zachary. You're tracking her ex-boyfriend's call history."

"I'm tracking someone who may pose a risk—"

"To what?" Reid looked at him. "To her? To the plan? To you?"

He didn't answer.

Reid exhaled. Slow and controlled. "You told me this was going to be managed. Those were your exact words. Managed."

"It is managed."

"You read a woman's personal file at eleven at night."

"That's information."

"You had her contract extended before you knew her name."

"That was the plan."

"You fed her from your private kitchen."

"She hadn't eaten."

"Zachary."

"It was seven thirty, Reid. She'd been working since eight in the morning."

Reid looked at him for a long moment. At the man he had known since they were twenty two years old standing at his office window with his hands in his pockets talking about a woman's eating schedule like it was a logistics issue.

"Okay," Reid said.

"It was practical."

"I believe you," Reid said, in the tone of someone who did not believe him at all.

Caden arrived at nine forty seven.

He walked in, read the room — he always read rooms, it was the thing about Caden that people missed because they were too busy watching the charm to notice the perception underneath it — and sat down anyway because Caden Merritt had never once let atmosphere stop him from being somewhere he wanted to be.

"So," he said. "How was dinner?"

Both Reid and Zachary looked at him.

"What?" He raised both hands. "Diana mentioned the private dining room was used last night. I'm making conversation."

"Diana shouldn't mention things," Zachary said.

"Diana mentions everything to me. We have an arrangement going back four years and it works for both of us." He looked at Reid. "He fed her."

"I'm aware," Reid said.

"From the private kitchen. On a Thursday." Caden leaned forward slightly. "Because she hadn't eaten. Which he knew because he was on her floor at seven thirty."

"Caden," Zachary said.

"I'm establishing facts."

"There are no facts to establish."

"There are absolutely facts." He looked at Zachary steadily. The easy smile was still there but underneath it something else — something older and more serious that Caden kept hidden so well most people forgot it existed. "And for the record. I think it's good."

Nobody said anything.

"I've watched you run this company for fifteen years," Caden said. "I've watched you manage every relationship you've ever had like a problem to be solved. And this — whatever this is — is the first thing I've seen you do that wasn't managed." He paused. "So I think it's good. That's all I'm saying."

Zachary looked at him.

Caden looked back.

"How did she seem?" Caden asked. "Last night."

"Fine."

"Fine like—"

"Fine."

Caden nodded once. Looked at Reid. Reid gave him a very small look that communicated several things without saying any of them. Caden received it and sat back.

Sloane arrived at ten past ten.

He walked in. Closed the door. Looked at the closed file on the desk. Looked at Reid. Looked at Zachary. Did not sit down.

"Sloane—" Zachary started.

"I'm not going to say anything," Sloane said. "I'm just going to stand here and let you hear what this sounds like."

Silence.

"It sounds fine," Zachary said.

"It sounds," Sloane said quietly, "like a man who read a woman's file at eleven at night and then fed her from his private kitchen and is now sitting in this office telling me it sounds fine."

Nobody said anything.

Caden opened his mouth.

"Don't," Sloane said. Without looking at him.

Caden closed it.

Sloane looked at Zachary. Not with judgment — Sloane didn't do judgment, it was too imprecise. He did clarity. He looked at you until you understood something you had been avoiding.

"You have eighteen months," he said. "Maybe less. And you're already—" He stopped. Looked at the file. Looked back at Zachary. "This was supposed to be the thing you controlled."

"I know what it was supposed to be."

"Do you know what it's becoming?"

The silence that followed was its own answer.

Sloane picked up his phone from the desk. Pocketed it.

"Okay," he said. "I've said nothing."

He turned and left.

The door closed behind him.

Caden looked at the door. Then at Zachary. Then at Reid. He stood up slowly, buttoned his jacket, paused at the door.

"Zachary."

Zachary looked up.

Caden held his gaze for a moment. Something in his face — quiet, genuine, none of the charm anywhere near it.

"Whatever this is becoming," he said. "Don't spend it managing it."

He left.

Reid stayed.

He stood at the window for another minute. Then he turned. Looked at Zachary sitting at his desk with the closed file in front of him and the city behind him and thirteen months on the calendar.

"I'm going to ask you something," he said. "And I need the actual answer."

Zachary waited.

"Is the plan still the plan?"

The silence that followed lasted long enough to be its own answer.

"Yes," Zachary said.

Reid looked at him for a long moment.

"Okay," he said. He picked up his jacket. Walked to the door. Stopped with his hand on the frame without turning around. "The white tulip."

Zachary said nothing.

"Outside her apartment door last night." Reid's voice was even. "Diana mentioned that too."

He left.