Page 10 of His Wall

Then I exhaled.

I walked the floor on the way out, killed the desk lamp, and closed his door fully. I crossed to my own desk, shut the laptop, pulled my coat off the back of the chair, took the elevator down to the lobby, and smiled at the night security guard who knew Claire Kent and not Leah Calder. Then I walked out onto the sidewalk into a warm night.

I caught the train at Forty-Ninth. I sat with two college kids and a man asleep against the window. I got off at my stop, walked the four blocks to my building, and did not look back once.

Mrs. Alvarez was in the hallway outside my door.

She was in her housecoat with her glasses pushed up into her hair. She had her own door propped open with one slipper, and a smell of garlic and tomato was coming out of it, which — if I was honest — was the best thing I had smelled all day.

"You're late again, mija."

"Long day, Mrs. Alvarez."

"Come eat. I made enough for an army."

"That's so kind. I've already eaten."

"You have not."

"I'm just heading in to shower."

She squinted at me. She was sixty-eight, and she didn't miss anything. She had decided in my second week that I was a sad young woman who needed feeding.

"You work too much."

"I'll come on Sunday. Promise."

"You said that last Sunday."

"I'll come this Sunday."

She let me pass. I felt her watching me until I had my key in the lock.

The apartment was the way I had left it.

Lamp off in the entry. Running shoes by the door, toes pointed in. Bookshelf along the wall — three shelves, paperbacks, and one hardback, all of them nonfiction, all of them mine. The plant on the windowsill, leaves a little dusty, alive. The couch I had bought from the apartment's previous tenant for $60. The single chair at the kitchen counter.

I locked the door behind me, slid the chain, and set the deadbolt.

I stood in the entry for a second with my hand still on the chain.

I changed. Claire's blouse and trousers came off and went into the dry-cleaning bag in the closet. I pulled on a soft gray T-shirt and a pair of joggers, and my hair came out of the knot. It fell heavy against my shoulders. Blood ran back into my scalp, and a small ache I had been ignoring since lunch let go.

I put my mother's chicken soup on the stove. While it warmed, I poured a glass of water, drank it standing, and watched the lights in the building across the street.

I ate at the counter. The food reminded me that I had grown up in a house with a woman who made soup, and that the woman was still alive in a small house outside Fort Bragg. On Sunday, I would call her, I would lie about my job, and she would let me.

I washed the bowl, dried it, and put it back in the cabinet. Then I sat at the counter with the laptop and got to work.

The Bureau channel opened on the third ring on my laptop. The handshake protocol ran. I plugged the microdrive in and started the upload.

I had gotten less than I'd planned. I had been at his desk for eleven minutes before I'd heard the footsteps. The full image would have taken thirty. What I had was partial — recent file access logs, the calendar metadata, a snapshot of his open browser tabs, and the desktop folder structure. Not the deep pull I had wanted. Better than nothing.

I wrote the brief while it was uploading.

Subject opened Q3 close meeting at 1107. Notable: dismissed Graham investigation as a one-off in line with Hale and Reeves. Recommend not reading dismissal as endorsement; subject's behavioral markers in non-deal contexts are minimal and have not yet been calibrated.

Subject arrived at the office prior to 0750 and identified four indicators of interference with the desk and storage. Did not escalate to security. Read of the disturbance was specific and accurate.