Chapter 54 I will give you more…

Chapter 54 I will give you more…
Anthony called on a Thursday morning.

Nia saw his name on the screen and let it ring twice before she answered. Not long enough to be avoided, just long enough to settle herself.

"Anthony."

"You have been quiet," he said.

"I have been working."

"So have I." His voice carried that particular ease he used when he wanted her to feel the ground shifting without being able to point to when it started moving. "How are things at Cole's company?"

"Fine."

"Good." A pause. "I need movement, Nia. The ball changes nothing on my end, the arrangement still stands."

"I am aware of that."

"Are you." It was not quite a question. "Because it has been some time since you gave me anything useful and I am beginning to wonder if you have forgotten what happens when you stop being useful to me."

She kept her voice level. "I have not forgotten."

"Good." Another pause, longer this time. "I have come across something recently. Something I think you would find personally useful."

Her hand tightened slightly on the phone. She did not let it show in her voice. "What kind of something?"

"The kind that relates to a matter you have been looking into quietly." He left that sitting between them, just let the shape of it take up space. "I am not going to say more than that right now."

"Then why bring it up?"

"Because I want you to know I have it." His voice remained easy. That was the thing about Anthony, he never sounded like a man who was threatening you. 

He sounded like a man having a reasonable conversation and that was somehow always worse. 

"When you give me something worth trading for, I will give you more. Think about it."

He ended the call.

She stood at the side entrance of the building for a full minute afterward.

She did not go back inside immediately. She stood in the cold air and breathed and thought about what he had just done. 

He had not threatened her directly. He had not demanded anything she could point to and name. He had simply placed the knowledge that he had something and then removed it before she could form the right question. Left her with the shape of it and none of the substance.

And it had worked. She knew it had worked because her mind was already moving through what he could possibly have. What information about a matter she had been looking into quietly could be in Anthony DeLuca's possession. 
She thought about the search. She thought about how carefully she had kept it, asking Xavier for help without saying why, keeping the details from Sophia, not writing anything identifying in any document that could be found. 

She had been careful, but Anthony had always been careful too and he had always operated in the spaces between careful people.

She went back inside.

She sat at her desk and opened the chronology and kept working and underneath the working the call sat like a stone she had swallowed.

She thought about telling Xavier. She decided against it for now. She did not have enough yet. She needed to understand more before she handed it to someone else to carry. 

She had a habit of carrying things alone for too long and she knew it and she was doing it again and she told herself she would stop doing it as soon as she had something solid enough to justify the conversation.

She worked until half past six. She packed her bag and left the building and took the bus home instead of calling Eric because she needed the time to think without the particular attention of being observed.



Sophia was on the couch when she got in, her feet tucked under her, a book open on her lap that she was clearly not reading.

"You are late," Sophia said.

"I know." Nia dropped her bag by the door and went to the kitchen. She put the kettle on. She stood at the counter while it heated and thought about Anthony's voice. I have come across something recently.

"You have that face again," Sophia called from the couch.

"I do not have a face."

"You have had the same face for three weeks. It is the face you make when something is sitting on you that you have not decided what to do with yet."

Nia poured the water. She came out with two cups and set one on the table beside Sophia and sat in the chair across from her.

"Anthony called today," she said.

Sophia put the book down properly. "What did he want."

"The same thing he always wants." Nia wrapped both hands around her cup. "But he added something new. He said he has information I would find personally useful. 

He did not say what it was. He said when I give him something worth trading for he will tell me more."

Sophia was quiet for a moment. "Do you know what it is?"

"I think so." Nia looked at the cup. "I think it is about the search."

Sophia did not ask which search. Nia had not given her the full details yet but Sophia had known her long enough to understand that there was a search and that it mattered more than Nia had been letting on. 

She had seen the evenings at the kitchen table. She had seen the way Nia handled certain documents. She knew enough to know she did not yet know enough.

"What are you going to do?" Sophia said.

"Nothing yet." Nia set th cup down. "He wants me to panic and move. So I am not going to panic and I am not going to move. Not tonight."

Sophia looked at her steadily. "And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow I go to work." Nia stood up. "And I keep thinking."

"Nia."

She stopped in the doorway.

"You know you can tell me things," Sophia said. "Whatever it is. You have always been allowed to tell me things."

Nia looked at her. "I know."

"But you do not."

"Not yet." She meant it. "Soon."