JUDAS (BREAKING THE DEVIL'S HALO)

Worth the Risk of Being Found

CHAPTER 5

They spent the first three days moving between places that weren't theirs: a cousin of Kai's who asked no questions and offered a pullout couch, a motel off the interstate that took cash without blinking, a night on Priya's own living room floor that she'd insisted on despite every professional instinct telling her it was a bad idea.

Judas had never understood how exhausting it was to simply exist somewhere without a fixed address, the low-grade vigilance of never fully unpacking a bag, because unpacking implied a permanence neither of them had anymore.

Kai's cousin Theo, a quiet man who ran a small appliance repair shop, fed them without asking questions and left a spare key under a fake rock, a small kindness in a week defined by the absence of them. When Judas thanked him properly, Theo just shrugged and said family didn't need explanations, only help.

Kai handled it better, or performed handling it better. He'd set up a workstation within twenty minutes of arriving anywhere, three devices Priya had helped him quietly acquire, and disappeared into work the way other people disappeared into sleep.

"We need a plan that isn't just running," Judas said, on the third night, both of them on opposite ends of a motel bed that smelled faintly of industrial cleaner. "Running buys us time. It doesn't buy us anything else."

"I know." Kai didn't look up from the screen. "I've been thinking about the facility. The one from the budget file, out past the industrial parkland. If we can get eyes on it, actual physical eyes, we might have something Priya could finally run with."

"That's not a hacking problem anymore."

"No. And I don't think either of us is built for that kind of problem, if I'm honest. I can get you information. I cannot get you into a building without setting off every alarm they've got." He set the laptop down, an unusual gesture, and looked at Judas directly. "I've been good at a lot of things since we started this. I am not good at the part where we'd need to physically stand somewhere dangerous without getting caught. I want to say that out loud before either of us starts pretending otherwise."

Judas appreciated the honesty more than he let on. It was, in its own way, the bravest thing Kai had said all week.

"So what do we do."

Kai was quiet a moment, still typing, then turned the laptop around.

"I went back through the budget file looking for anything I missed. Found a line I skipped past because it didn't look important. A recurring payment to something called Whitmore Consulting. I ran it down. It's not a real consulting firm. It's a front for a private investigator who's apparently been enough of a thorn in Apex's side that they've been tracking him and, based on the payment history, trying at least once to buy him off."

"They pay their enemies?"

"They pay people they'd rather have on a leash than fighting them in the open. Didn't work, near as I can tell. The payments stopped eight months ago, right around when this guy went fully dark. Which either means Apex got rid of the problem permanently, or he got good enough at disappearing that even Apex lost him."

Judas felt a lead turning solid under his hands for the first time in days. "You think he's still after them."

"I think somebody who costs a company like Apex enough money and worry to try bribing him quiet doesn't just give up because the bribe stopped working. I think he's still out there, and I think he already knows more about this than we've pieced together in two weeks." Kai rubbed his eyes. "I keep thinking about what kind of person takes on a fight like this alone, without a paper, without a partner. Either they're the bravest person I've never met, or they've got a reason that makes bravery beside the point entirely."

"Do you have a name?"

"No. Whoever set up Whitmore Consulting was careful, careful enough that even I couldn't get past the shell. But I have a reputation. People in certain circles apparently call him Sherlock, which is either the dumbest alias I've ever heard, or exactly clever enough that nobody takes it seriously as a real lead."

They brought it to Priya the next morning, at a coffee shop three neighborhoods from the paper, chosen because none of them had ever set foot in it before.

She listened without interrupting. When Kai finished, she sat back and studied them both.

"If this man exists, and if he's been running his own investigation into Apex long enough for them to try buying him off, he already has more field intelligence than either of you could gather in a year. That's the good news." She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup without drinking from it. "The bad news is a man good enough to stay invisible from a company with Apex's resources is not going to be easy to find, and if you do find him, there's no guarantee he wants to be found by two people currently being hunted as suspected criminals."

"We don't have a lot of other options," Judas said.

"No, you don't. Which is exactly the kind of situation where people make mistakes they wouldn't otherwise make. So be smart. Do it slowly, and assume every step you take might be watched." She glanced at Kai. "Whatever you're running on these devices, make sure none of it can be traced back to this coffee shop, or to me. I've stuck my neck out about as far as it goes for the two of you already."

"Understood," Kai said, no joke riding underneath it this time.

She reached into her bag and slid a folded piece of paper across the table, an address written on it in her own handwriting.

"A friend. Retired investigator herself. She won't know your Sherlock specifically, but she'll know how people like that stay hidden." Priya stood, gathering her coat. "And Judas." She waited until he looked up at her. "Whoever this man turns out to be, you're not just looking for information anymore. You're looking for someone to trust with your life. Make sure you're both ready for what that means before you find him."

They visited the address two days later, a small house belonging to a retired investigator named Grace, who watched them both with the unhurried attention of someone who'd spent thirty years learning to read people. She didn't know the name Sherlock, but she knew the type, and talked for nearly an hour about the psychology of people who chose to disappear on purpose. None of it was a map. All of it was a start.

"He'll find you before you find him," Grace said at the door. "People like that always do. The trick isn't finding him. It's making sure that when he does find you, he decides you're worth the risk of being found by." She held Judas's gaze a moment longer than felt comfortable, then nodded once, sharply, and closed the door.

Kai was already back on his laptop, chasing the thin thread of Whitmore Consulting toward whatever came next. They didn't have a home anymore, not really. They didn't have clean names, or safe accounts, or the easy assumption that tomorrow would look anything like today.

What they had, for the first time since this had started, was a direction.

It would take them another eleven days to find him, days that would feel, in retrospect, like the last quiet stretch either of them would get for a very long time.