Page 63 of Undertow

“As long as you can.”

“How long do you need?”

“Five minutes. Maybe less.”

She said it the way other people said, “pass the salt.” Like breaking into a locked records room in a building she’d never been in was just another item on the list.

“Wade, we’re going in,” she said. “Keep the line open.”

“Reagan’s in a coffee shop on the corner with eyes on the lobby. You’ve got backup. Go.”

The lobby guard didn’t look up from his phone. Gabe signed the visitor sheet—a name he’d invented that morning, a phone number that went to a burner Tom had configured—and the guard buzzed them through. First checkpoint, passed.

The elevator doors opened onto a plush hallway. Fresh carpet, framed photos, the hush of money that had been laundered into respectability. A young woman in a navy dress met them at reception.

“Mr. and Mrs. Calloway? I’m Jess. We spoke on the phone.”

“Jess, thank you so much for fitting us in.” Cara shook Jess’s hand with both of hers. “My husband and I have been looking at elder care initiatives in the Bay Area, and the Whitfield Foundation keeps coming up.”

Nothing to see here. Nope. Nada.

The tour was polished. Conference room, small library, a wall of donor plaques. Jess talked about the Foundation’s elder care programs with the earnest conviction of a person who believed every word, which made it worse. The programs were real. The good work was real. And underneath it, Graham Whitfield had been siphoning money to fund a drug that erased people’s memories.

Gabe played the quiet husband—the one who let his wife do the talking but whose questions had teeth. “What percentage of your annual budget goes to direct services versus administrative overhead?”

Jess consulted her notes.

He thought of another issue. “How does the Foundation vet its pharmaceutical partnerships?”

Cara was asking her own questions—how were care facilities selected, what external audits existed—and each one sounded like due diligence and was actually reconnaissance. Gabe could see it in how her eyes moved: cataloging doors, mapping the hallway to the left, measuring the distance to the break room and whatever lay beyond it.

Ten minutes in, she leaned toward Jess. “I’m so sorry—could I trouble you for the restroom?”

“Of course. Down the hall, second door on the right.”

Cara touched Gabe’s arm—the gesture of a wife telling her husband she’d be right back—and she was gone.

Gabe had counted time under pressure before—on stakeouts, in interrogation rooms, in the back of unmarked cars waiting for a signal that meant go. This was different. This was counting time while Cara was somewhere on this floor doing something that would get them both arrested if it went wrong.

“So, Jess,” he said. “Tell me about the Foundation’s governance structure. How does the board oversee disbursements?”

Jess brightened. Governance was her strong suit, apparently. She talked about the board of directors, the quarterly reviews, the audit committee. Gabe nodded. Asked follow-up questions. Maintained the interested expression of a man with money to spend and due diligence to perform, while behind his eyes he was counting.

One minute.

He could hear his own pulse in his ears. Low. Steady. Faster than it should be. The hallway Cara had turned down was visible from where he stood—just barely, a sliver of corridor past the reception area. Empty. Quiet.

Two minutes.

“And the elder care facilities themselves,” Gabe said. “Does the Foundation conduct site visits? Regular inspections?” He knew the answer didn’t matter. He needed Jess’s mouth moving so that his silence didn’t become a question.

Jess talked about annual reviews. Compliance standards. A pilot program in Sacramento. Gabe filed none of it. His attention was split between Jess’s face and the hallway, and the hallway was winning.

Three minutes.

A door opened somewhere on the floor. Gabe’s pulse spiked. Footsteps—but they went the other direction. A phone rang at an empty desk and went to voicemail.

“Are you all right, Mr. Calloway?” Jess asked.