Sullivan leaned against the counter. “It’s not that he doesn’t trust you. It’s not that he doesn’t care. You get that, don’t you?”
Tobias let out a low laugh. “I’m not sure how else you could interpret it.” He got out a mug for himself and shook a second one in the air in a silent question.
Sullivan nodded, then added, “And he said those things to me for the same reason you could be honest with me in the beginning. It’s because he doesn’t care what I think. He does care what you think.”
Tobias slowly poured coffee. That possibility hadn’t occurred to him. “I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Tobias passed Sullivan’s mug over. “Thank you. For helping me. For helping my friend. For not leaving us. That was brave. And decent. So thank you.”
He was quiet a moment, and the air shifted between them, thickened in a way that made Tobias slightly uneasy. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Sullivan seemed on the verge of saying something, then hesitated. Finally, he said, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I know. I’m sorry it came to that.” If any part of this sat poorly with Tobias it was that Sullivan had been forced into that position, but he didn’t buy that this was the only source of the problem. Tobias studied his profile—the ordinary slope of his nose, the bony ridges of his brow and cheekbones and jaw, his strong chin and thick eyelashes. He looked tired and a little unhappy. “Is that the only thing that’s bothering you?”
Sullivan scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “No. I don’t know.”
Tobias licked his lips. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not remotely.” Sullivan accepted a mug and took a paper towel from the roll, wiping at spilled sugar, no doubt using the excuse of the chore to avoid eye contact. It was so unlike him—what Tobias knew of him, anyway—that a shiver of unease crept down his spine.
“All right.” He wanted to push, but it wasn’t like Sullivan had been unclear, and the least Tobias could do was respect his wishes. “You think we got away with it?”
“I think if they knew who we are, we’d be dead already.”
“That’s a small comfort, at least.”
“Yeah.”
Tobias went to the sink and washed the stirring spoon. “You did good with him. He’s difficult. I never know what to do with him when he’s like that, but you didn’t have any trouble.”
“He doesn’t speak your language,” Sullivan said, not unkindly. He jerked a shoulder. “The two of you have fundamentally different ways of looking at the world. It doesn’t translate, that’s all.”
Sullivan had been right; Tobias didn’t like it. Part of him wanted to argue, but it would be bull, so he took a breath instead and changed the subject.
“What do you think is on that USB drive?”
Sullivan chucked the paper towel into the plastic grocery sack Tobias had set out for trash. “Let’s find out.”
It turned out that Sullivan’s laptop—outfitted with what he called the PI’s computer toolbox, a collection of programs likely to come in handy over the course of a career of using different surveillance equipment—already had a media viewer that allowed them to open the files on the USB.
There was more than one—most were short, simple things, and they were all taken from the same vantage point. Tobias tried to picture the living room, and realized the camera must’ve been on the top shelf of the bookshelves inset in the wall. He couldn’t precisely recall what else had stood on the shelf. Photographs, maybe. Or fancy pottery.
“How did Ghost hide a video camera there?” he asked.
“Some of the newer ones are the size of your pinky fingernail,” Sullivan explained. “The camera would transmit the footage to Ghost’s laptop, where he would be able to cut out any extraneous material and copy whatever he wanted to any other disks. I can’t imagine Mama sparing any expense. All Ghost would need is a shadowed area out of a frequent sight line.”
“But why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff? He could’ve emailed it to someone anytime.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he shook his head. “Yeah, like Ghost would trust anyone enough to send them this. Still. He could’ve emailed it to himself. Or Mama. Then he wouldn’t need the USB.”
“Maybe he was interrupted,” Sullivan mused. “Or maybe he was afraid to use his email. I wouldn’t be surprised if Spratt forced him to give up his email password. But I don’t think Mama has these files yet, or Ghost wouldn’t have been so determined to get the USB. Plus, something must’ve happened to get him moved from a nice, comfortable bedroom to being handcuffed in a closet.”
The image quality was surprisingly good, but there was no sound, so the first five vids were just a collection of people standing around silently flapping their mouths—Spratt talking to the balding man, Spratt talking to Tidwell, Spratt talking to a handful of other people, some in patrol uniforms, some not.
“How in the world would this be useful?” Tobias asked.
“How many times have you gone to your boss’s house for legitimate work conversations? I can’t imagine cops do it all that often. If nothing else, it puts a variety of cops in potential collusion. A DA could subpoena all of these people. Some of them would turn State’s Evidence if they knew about criminal activities and wanted to save their own asses.”
“You’re thinking like a good cop,” Tobias pointed out. “What would Mama get out of it?”
“Yeah, I’m the good guy.” Sullivan huffed a sour laugh.
Tobias sat up straight. “Sullivan. Hey.”
“Forget it. It’s fine,” he said wearily, and started a new video, this one of Spratt and four other men having yet another conversation. “And Mama gets the same thing. Knowing who can be targeted, either because
