Chapter 52 I know it’s time

Chapter 52 I know it’s time
It's becoming more complicated now so Bruno sat up.
I sat up with him.
I looked outside the window, it's daybreak already. We didn't sleep all night because of what was going on and when we finally did we woke up late and we're supposed to have left that house before then. 
"He is lying," I said.
"Maybe," Bruno said.
"Bruno. Cole has been building this case for eleven months. She arrested Richard herself. She put her people in that bar and walked in behind them and put her hand on his shoulder." I looked at him. "She is not on his list."
"Richard puts people on lists to create doubt," Bruno said. "He does not need Cole to actually be compromised. He needs the allegation to exist. One allegation against the lead investigator and the entire case goes into internal review."
"Which stalls everything," I said.
"Yes," Bruno said. "Again. Different mechanism. Same result."
I got out of bed and went to the window and looked at the street below. People on their way to work, a woman with a pushchair, a man unlocking a bicycle. All of it ordinary and indifferent and moving.
"Call her," I said.
Bruno looked at me.
"Call Cole directly," I said. "Not Luca. Cole. Right now before the prosecutor calls her back and the process starts and she gets pulled into an internal review that takes her off the case."
"What do I say?" Bruno said.
"Ask her," I said. "Directly. Ask her if Richard has anything on her. Give her the chance to tell you before it becomes official."
Bruno looked at his phone.
"If she is compromised that call tells her we know," he said.
"If she is not compromised that call tells her we are on her side," I said. "Either way we know where we stand before nine this morning."
Bruno dialed.
Cole answered in two rings.
"I know why you are calling," she said. Her voice was the same as it always was. Flat, precise, completely indifferent to the hour. "Richard's lawyer called you."
"Yes," Bruno said.
"He is lying," Cole said.
"Tell me," Bruno said.
A short silence.
"Three years ago Richard approached me," Cole said. "I was working a different case. Smaller. He had a connection to one of the subjects and he offered me information in exchange for access to our evidence files." She paused. "I reported the approach to my superintendent within the hour. It is documented. Richard knows it is documented."
"So he has nothing," I said.
"He has the approach," Cole said. "Which he can present without the documentation. Which looks, to anyone who does not know the full record, like a relationship between us." Her voice was even. "He is not stupid. He knows the allegation alone is enough to trigger a review."
"Can the documentation be produced quickly?" Bruno said.
"My superintendent has it," Cole said. "I called him at six this morning when Richard's lawyer first made contact. He is pulling the file now." A pause. "I need it in front of the prosecutor before nine."
"How long does that take?" Bruno said.
"That depends on my superintendent," Cole said. "He is not a fast-moving man."
"Who is he?" Bruno said.
Cole gave a name.
Bruno looked at me.
I shook my head. I did not know it.
"Luca might," Bruno said quietly to me.
He called Luca on the other line and gave him the superintendent's name and Luca was quiet for three seconds and then said yes, he knew him, they had worked on a case together four years ago.
"Call him," Bruno said. "Right now. Tell him what Cole needs and that it needs to be in front of the prosecutor before nine."
Luca said he would.
Bruno ended both calls and stood in the middle of the bedroom in yesterday's clothes with his hair not sorted and the morning coming in through the open window and looked at me.
"Shower," I said. "Both of us. Then breakfast. Then we wait."
He looked at me.
"You are very calm," he said.
"One of us has to be," I said.
He almost smiled.
We showered and Bruno made eggs, again, and I sat on the counter, again, and he handed me a fork and we ate from the same pan standing in the kitchen and the morning was loud outside and the coffee was hot and the eggs were good and none of what was happening in a prosecutor's office across the city required anything from us in this kitchen right now except to eat and be here and let Luca and Cole do what they were paid to do.
"After today," Bruno said.
"After today," I said.
"I am not answering my phone for a week," he said.
"Luca will call," I said.
"Luca will leave a message," he said.
I looked at him. "You have never once let a call from Luca go to voicemail."
"There is a first time," he said.
I shook my head and ate my eggs and his foot pressed against mine under the counter and stayed there and outside the city went about its Tuesday morning and inside the kitchen was warm and close and exactly right.
His phone rang at eight forty.
Luca.
Bruno looked at me.
"Voicemail," I said.
He answered it.
He ended the call.
"The superintendent's file reached the prosecutor at eight thirty," he said. "Cole's documentation is verified. The allegation is dismissed." He set the phone on the counter. "Richard's deal is off the table. He has no leverage left."
I looked at him.
"And the case?" I said.
"Proceeds," he said. "Cole takes it to prosecution. Richard goes to trial." He paused. "Luca says eighteen months. Maybe less."
I put my fork down.
Eighteen months.
A trial. Lawyers and courtrooms and my name read out in front of a judge in a building where Richard would sit across the room from me and his lawyers would say things designed to make me sound like someone I was not.
Eighteen months of not being finished.
Bruno was watching my face.
"You do not have to be in that courtroom," he said.
"I know," I said.
"Cole has everything she needs," he said. "Rosa. Harlan. Matteo. Mara. Daniel. The emails. The metadata. The accounts." He looked at me directly. "You gave her all of it. You do not have to give her anything else."
I looked at him across the kitchen.
"I want to testify," I said.
Bruno said nothing.
"I want to sit in that room and say what happened," I said. "In my own words. On record." I held his gaze. "Not for Cole. Not for the case. For me."
Bruno looked at me for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Then we testify," he said.
We.
I looked at him.
"You are not involved in the trial," I said.
"I am involved in everything that involves you," he said simply. "That is not something I am negotiating."
I looked at this man standing in his kitchen in yesterday's clothes with egg on the fork he was still holding and his hair still not sorted and his phone on the counter and Lisbon two days away and thought about the night I had opened my apartment door and found him on the other side of it and resented everything about his presence.
I put my cup down and crossed the kitchen and kissed him and he kissed me back and the fork went on the counter and his arms came around me.