Chapter 17 · Whose Lock This Is

"Don't." Knox's hand closes over my wrist before I get two fingers on the radio clipped to my hip.

"Get off me." I twist. He doesn't let go. His palm is still hot from the last twenty minutes, still smells like me, and I hate that I notice that before I notice the red light over the wash corridor door.

"That's not my crew," he says. "My guys don't hit the lever like that."

"Like what?"

"Twice fast, then hold." His jaw ticks. "That's a signal. Somebody's telling somebody else it's clear."

I look past him at the fogged glass. The ATF badge is gone from the frame now, but the shape of a shoulder moves behind the steam, unhurried, patient in a way that makes my skin go tight all over again — different tight than five minutes ago. Worse tight.

The vault's cold now, worse than before, sprinkler runoff still dripping somewhere behind the shelving, and the readout by the door ticks over — forty-six hours left on the seal, not forty-eight. Every minute we stand here arguing is a minute we don't get back.

"Then I call it in." My thumb finds the radio button.