married to my killer

chapter 8

Chapter 8

NAOMI POV

I typed the message three times before I sent it. In the end I kept it simple.

My name is Naomi Voss. I think we might be looking at the same company from two different directions. I'd like to talk, if you're willing.

I didn't mention Reyes Logistics. I didn't mention Edmund. If I was wrong about him, I wanted to be able to walk it back.

The reply came twelve minutes later.

I know who you are. There's a coffee shop on Sixth, two blocks from the merger offices. Tomorrow, 9 a.m. Come alone. And Mrs. Voss checks who's behind you before you walk in.

That last line sat with me longer than the rest of it. I read it four times, and each time it felt less like caution and more like a warning he had a specific reason to give.

I didn't sleep well that night. Julian noticed the way he'd started noticing everything lately, and asked if I wanted to talk about it. I told him I was anxious about the merger paperwork Edmund had given me. Not a full lie. A smaller version of the truth than the one I was carrying.

He believed me. That was still the part that hurt the most.

I checked who was behind me twice on the walk to Sixth Street, and both times I felt ridiculous for it, and both times I did it anyway.

The coffee shop was the kind of place that survived because it was two blocks from money, not because the coffee was good. I picked a table in the back, facing the door, and I was still deciding whether that had been a smart choice when a man slid into the seat across from me without asking if it was taken.

He was maybe forty. Plain suit, no ring, the specific tired look of someone who'd been carrying something for a long time and had stopped expecting anyone to help him set it down.

"You didn't bring your husband," he said.

"You told me to come alone."

"I did." He glanced past me, toward the window, then back. "I wasn't sure you'd actually listen."

"You said to check who was behind me. Was that a real warning, or a test?"

Something flickered across his face, surprise, maybe, that I'd asked instead of just answering his question first. "A little of both. You passed."

"I don't know your name," I said. "Not really. A business card doesn't tell me anything."

"Marcus Cole." He said it like he was handing over less than I wanted. "That's the only part I'm giving you for free."

"Then what's the rest going to cost me?"

"Information runs both directions, Mrs. Voss. I've been circling this family for six years. I'm not about to hand you everything I have because you sent one text and showed up on time." He wrapped both hands around a coffee he hadn't touched. "I want to know what you already know. Then we'll see how much I owe you."

I didn't like that. I liked it less because it was fair.

"There's a card with your name on it," I said carefully, "sitting inside a folder in the Voss family archive. Filed under initials that aren't yours. I don't think you left it there by accident."

"I didn't."

"Then you wanted me to find it."

"I wanted whoever was curious enough to go digging through Edmund's private files to find it. I didn't know that would be you." He finally drank the coffee, and I watched him decide, in real time, how much of the truth he was willing to spend on me. "My father ran a logistics company. It failed eleven years ago. Badly. Suddenly. No one left to explain why."

That sentence again. The one I'd used my whole life to describe my own father's company, until four days ago.

"That's not a coincidence," I said.

"No. It isn't." He didn't offer anything else. He was watching me the way I'd started watching Edmund waiting to see what I'd do with silence instead of filling it for me.

I filled it anyway, because I didn't have six years to spend being careful the way he had. "There's a list in Edmund's files. Six company names. Five say resolved. Mine says pending."

He went very still. His hand tightened slightly around the cup. "You've seen that."

"Yesterday. He almost walked in while I was reading it."

"Almost."

"Almost," I said. "I got it retired before he came through the door. He doesn't know."

"You'd better be right about that," Marcus said, and for the first time his voice lost its careful edge. "Because if he finds out you've seen that list, Mrs. Voss, this conversation we're having stops being researched and starts being a countdown. For both of us."

A waitress passed close to our table, and Marcus went quiet mid-sentence, watching her the whole way to the counter before he spoke again, lower this time.

"Is your father's name on that list?"

"No. It's mine. Reyes."

Something crossed his face. I couldn't name recognition, maybe, or relief that it wasn't a stranger's name, or something heavier than either. "Then he's already decided what the resolution is going to look like for you. He just hasn't finished it yet."

"I know what it looked like the first time," I said, before I could stop myself.

Marcus went still again, differently this time. "What does that mean?"

I hadn't meant to say it. I covered, fast. "I mean I already lived through what happens when this family decides you're a problem worth handling quietly. I don't need you to explain the ending to me. I need to know how to stop it before it gets there."

He studied me a beat too long, like he'd heard something underneath the sentence he wasn't sure he believed, and chose, for now, to let it go.

"I can't tell you how he does it," he said finally. "Not because I'm protecting him. Because I don't fully know yet. Six years, and every trail goes cold in the same place. That's not luck. That's a system built by someone who's done this enough times to make it invisible."

"Then help me find where it isn't invisible. In my case. While it's still happening."

"That's a dangerous thing to ask a stranger in a coffee shop."

"You asked me to come alone and check who was behind me. I don't think you're worried about strangers."

For the first time, something that wasn't quite a smile moved across his face. "No. I'm worried about the ones who aren't strangers to him."

He checked his watch, stood, and left cash on the table without waiting for a check. "Same time, Thursday. Different places I'll text you where an hour before. Don't write it down anywhere he could find it."

I caught his sleeve before he could turn fully away, my voice low. "You said six years. That's a long time to keep looking, with nothing to show for it."

"I had something, once." He looked down at where my hand still rested on his arm until I let go. "Someone else who got close. Closer than I ever did."

"What happened to her?"

He was already three steps toward the door when he answered, not turning around.

"She's the reason I started looking in the first place."

Then he was gone, and I sat there with a cold cup of coffee, a Thursday I hadn't agreed to yet, and a question I was suddenly certain I didn't want the full answer to.