Chapter 10 · The Radius of Control

The elevator doors shut on Marcus Sterling's face, and my hand was still curled around a drive that was already in his pocket.

Twenty-two years at trial. I have never lost an exhibit. He took it out from between my fingers like I was a first-year who'd misfiled a motion.

The kid at the panel watched the numbers instead of me. "Floor, ma'am?"

"Lobby." My voice came out flat. Flat was the whole trick.

"Ma'am, your hands are—"

"I said lobby."

He shut up. His badge said Okonkwo, D. Under it, in gold: STERLING TOWER SECURITY. I rode forty-one floors down with my jaw locked and my pulse going like a hammer on a pipe.

He hadn't even raised his voice. That was the part I couldn't get past. In that file room, under one yellow emergency light, he'd taken my wrist, laid the drive on my own palm, folded my fingers around it, and then closed his hand over mine — warm, patient, almost tender — and said it.