She looks back at me, her face bereft.

“I’m sorry, Cait. I should never have pushed Royal that hard.”

She looks at the dark roof of the van. “I’m the one who went after Katy and made the tape.”

We stare into each other’s eyes, painfully, yet thankfully, aware that we share responsibility for our fate. As I try to think of some way to comfort her, her lips part, and her face brightens with hope.

“They can’t kill us, right? I mean—you’re the mayor, for God’s sake. I’m the publisher of the newspaper. Royal can’t imagine he could get away with that. The outcry would be huge. The investigation would never stop.”

This is the logic of a woman raised with privilege. If they’ve killed a cop to get us, and they know we know that, how can they possibly let us go? But I see no profit in pointing this out to Caitlin, who’s desperately searching for any hope of life.

“Royal’s a businessman,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “You said that back in my office. He’s doing this to make sure you hold up your end of the deal. He knows if he doesn’t, we could destroy him as soon as your father is safe. That’s only logical, right?”

“Yes,” I say.

“If he believes we’ll protect him, why take the risk of killing us?”

“He wants that witness dead. Pooky’s friend. ‘Huggy Bear.’ That’s what Brody wants from us. His real name.”

Her eyes narrow. “We don’t have it.”

“That’s right. And if he figures that out … we’re dead.”

Her eyes widen, then close. “We screwed ourselves,” she whispers. “By keeping what we knew about Royal secret, we made this happen.”

“We have one chance. Walker Dennis knows Royal is dirty, and it bothered him to keep what he knew from Kaiser. After what happened to Henry, he may tell Kaiser about it tonight. Just pray these bastards didn’t switch off our cell phones. Kaiser can track the pings.”

Caitlin puts on a brave face, but we both know the likelihood of this sort of luck is almost nil. With a glance up at the wire mesh, she says, “Tell me you left the Katy Royal tape in your car, at least?”

I shake my head. “It was in my coat pocket. They got it.”

With this, we fall silent. Further conversation seems pointless. Even the argument we had in her office, while shattering at the time, now seems trivial. If we could embrace, the essential redundancy of all words would be manifest. But we can’t. All we can do is look into each other’s eyes like condemned prisoners riding a cart to the guillotine.

“Will you kiss me?” she asks. “Before we get where we’re going?”