What Rhett Won't Say

I waited until the building emptied out. Rhett was still in his office, tie loosened, staring at a spreadsheet like it owed him money. I dropped the file on his desk without knocking.

"Solis," I said. "Talk to me about Solis."

Something moved behind his eyes, fast, gone before I could name it. "Where did you get that file?"

"Doesn't matter. Bettina says the leak was routed through my login, not sent from it. Says only you and Mom had the clearance to do that."

"Bettina doesn't know what she's talking about."

"She was on the ticket, Rhett."

He stood up so fast his chair rolled back and hit the credenza. "You want to come in here after ten years and rewrite what happened? You left. You took the client list and you left, and I watched Mom age five years in five months cleaning up after you."

"I didn't take anything." My voice cracked on it, which made me angrier. "I've said that for ten years to anyone who'd listen, which was nobody. And now I'm standing in your office with a file somebody wanted me to find, and a name I've never heard, and you look like you've seen a ghost."

"Get out of my office."

"Rhett."

"Get out, Gus."

I got out. There wasn't anywhere else for that conversation to go, not that night, not with him looking at me like I was the one holding a weapon.

I drove home to the rental I'd taken near the harbor, replaying Bettina's face when she said his name, replaying Odette in the parking lot. Ask Rhett why he never once tried to stop it. Nobody was answering that question. Everybody was circling it.

My phone rang around eleven. Unknown number, area code I didn't recognize.

"August Calder," a man's voice said, unhurried, almost amused. "We haven't met. My name is Konrad Solis."

I sat up straight in the dark.

"Your brother owes me a debt older than you think," Solis said. "Older than your mother's will, certainly. You should ask him about the loan sometime. Before your year runs out."

The line went dead before I could say a single word.