“I have to get what they want, then I’ll be ready.”

“Where is it?”

“In a safe. I’m not sure how to get at it without them knowing.”

“I’ll get it,” Casey said, without any hesitation. It was a solution, but not one that I wanted. I tried to talk her out of it; I tried to talk myself out of it, but I couldn’t think of a better way for it to work.

“I can go this morning,” she said.

I gave her the address and the combination for the safe. “It should be the only thing in the safe, but if it’s not, it’s a cardboard box, wrapped in red and blue duct tape. It’s about this big,” I said and held my hands up to show her the size.

“I’ll get it and bring it back here.”

I went outside and looked up and down the street. There were no cars waiting for me, no one camped out. I went out again in a couple of hours, right before I had to leave for work. No one. No one was going to follow me. No one was going to follow Casey. I was sure of it, as sure as I could be after having made a mistake, a big one. It would be over soon. One way or the other. And I was ready.

I went to work and tried to do my job, but hardly did much of anything except look at my phone. Mobley’s dot was moving around in the familiar ways, controlled by Froehmer. It almost made me think he had nothing to do with any of it. But I knew that was wrong. And then he texted me, still anonymous. “Tomorrow. 5 am. Ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Instructions to come.”

I called Denise. “I’ll have her tomorrow morning.”

“I still think we should call the cops.”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “If I don’t have her tomorrow morning, call them. Can you wait that long?”

“No,” she said, “but I will.”

—

When I got home from the warehouse, Casey was gone, but the cardboard box was on the table. I unwrapped it and looked at the trophy. “What people won’t do for the dumbest things,” Frank’s voice said in my head.