Read Chapter 28: The Broker

The ropes bit into Walter’s wrists like a second set of bones. They’d tied him to a heavy oak chair in what must have been DeVries’s study—leather-bound books on the walls, a globe the size of a washbasin, whiskey decanter gleaming on a sideboard. The man himself sat across from him, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette with the easy patience of a cat watching a bird with a torn wing.

Roy stood by the window. He had the decency to look uncomfortable about it, which Walter found almost more insulting than the shooting.

“You’re a hard man to kill,” Roy said. “I’ll give you that.”

“You had your chance. Twice.” Walter worked his jaw. Blood had dried at the corner of his mouth where one of the guards had corrected his posture. “You’ll have to be quicker.”

DeVries smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Mister Crane. You walked into my home, shot my man, and threatened me with a piece of paper. I respect the audacity. I do. But I think it’s time we cleared the air about what you think you know.”

“I know you’re building a house of cards with other people’s money.”

“You know what Roy told you to believe.” DeVries tapped ash into a crystal tray. “Which is it? What did he say when he recruited you? That I was the spider? The man behind the curtain?”

Walter said nothing.

Roy stepped forward. “I’ll tell you what I told him, since he won’t hear it from you.” He took a breath, and then his shoulders dropped—not shame, exactly. A weight being shifted. “I was a junior partner in this operation from the start. DeVries had the capital. I had the accounts. We were going to bleed the Federal Reserve dry and pin it on a dead man.”

“Arthur Phelps.”

“Arthur Phelps.” Roy said the name like a familiar ache. “He was the frame. The fall guy. But somewhere along the way I got a conscience. Or maybe I just got greedy. Either way, I decided I didn’t want to be the junior partner anymore. I wanted the whole pot.”

Walter laughed. It came out dry and ragged. “So you’re telling me you’re the *hero*.”

“I’m telling you I tried to take the documents and burn this whole thing down.” Roy’s jaw tightened. “Start over. Do it right. I owed Doc better than what he got, and I paid for it. But I wasn’t going to let DeVries put the noose around another innocent man’s neck.”

“You shot Doc.”

Roy flinched. It was small, quick, but Walter saw it. For a moment, the mask cracked, and behind it was something that looked almost like grief.

“I killed Doc because he was going to tell you everything,” Roy said, quieter now. “And because he was dying anyway. He knew too much. He gave his life trying to warn you, and I took it from him because I didn’t see another way out.” He swallowed. “That’s on me. I’ll carry it. But I didn’t come here to make peace with you, Crane. I came here to finish what I started. To stop DeVries from ruining the whole damned country.”

DeVries clapped. Slow, deliberate, three times. “Bravo, Roy. That was almost convincing.”

Roy turned on him. “I’ve got the document. The original. You’ve got nothing but a carbon copy in a dead man’s coat. So I think we’re at the point where we decide what happens next.”

“Is that so?”

DeVries rose, crossed to the sideboard, and poured himself a finger of whiskey. He did not offer either of them any.

“You know, Roy, you’re a clever man. I’ve always said that about you.” He sipped. “But clever and smart are different animals. Clever is when you figure out the game. Smart is when you know what game you’re actually playing.”

Roy’s hand drifted toward his hip. The holster was empty—they’d taken his gun at the door. “What are you talking about?”

DeVries set down the glass, walked to a painting on the far wall—a dreary landscape, cows in a field—and lifted it off its hook. Behind it was a recessed safe. Not the ornate kind Walter had pictured in bank boardrooms. An ugly gray box with a dial.

DeVries spun the dial with practiced ease. Twenty seconds later, the door swung open, and he pulled out a stack of papers bound in brown twine. He tossed them onto the desk in front of Roy.

Roy stared at them like they were a snake.

“Go on,” DeVries said. “Look. It’s all there. The Federal Reserve correspondence. The forged audit trails. The signatures. Every piece of paper that could hang me ten times over.”

Roy’s fingers were trembling as he untied the twine. He flipped through the pages, his eyes growing wider with each one. “No. I had this. I *had* it.”

“You had *a* copy. A good one, mind you. You’re a talented forger. I’ve always admired that about you.” DeVries took another sip of whiskey. “But you were never the only one who knew how to make paper say what you wanted.”

Roy’s face went white. He let the papers fall back onto the desk, fanning out like a losing hand of poker. “We had a deal.”

“We had a partnership. And you broke it the moment you decided to steal from me.” DeVries’s voice was still calm, conversational almost. “So I hedged my bets. Had a second set made. Real accounts. Real ink. I stored them where you wouldn’t look, because I never trusted you not to look.”

Walter watched the exchange, his mind churning. The carbon copy was still sewn into the lining of his coat—the one DeVries’s man had draped over the back of a chair across the room. The coin was in his shoe. He had one card left, and he had been bluffing with it for hours.

“That’s why you didn’t kill me,” Walter said.

DeVries looked at him, amused. “What’s that?”

“At the door. When I told you I had a second copy hidden. Roy had already brought you the original. You could’ve put a bullet in me and been done with it. But you didn’t. Because you weren’t sure if I was telling the truth about another copy.” Walter’s voice was flat. “Now you’ve shown me the safe. You’ve shown me what’s in it. That’s not a man who’s afraid of what I know. That’s a man who’s decided what to do with me.”

DeVries’s smile widened. “Mister Crane, you’re beginning to be worth the trouble you’ve caused.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now?” DeVries walked to the window, looked out at the dark grounds. His reflection ghosted over the glass. “Now Roy and I are going to have a long conversation about loyalty. And you’re going to sit there and watch it, because I haven’t decided yet whether you’re an asset or a liability.”

Roy’s jaw was tight, but he said nothing. His hands had stopped trembling. They were fists now.

Walter looked past them both, to the far wall, where the empty frame still hung. The safe was open. The papers were on the desk. His carbon copy was across the room, useless, worthless, an answer to a question DeVries had already solved.

He thought about the gold coin in his shoe. The serrated edge where someone had nicked it years ago. He thought about Doc, dying in his arms, whispering numbers that didn’t matter. About Jack and Sal, still in town, digging through old newspapers for a man they’d never find.

Then he thought about the look on Roy’s face when the papers had fallen out of the bundle. That look of *betrayal*.

And he realized: Roy had burned his bridges. He’d betrayed DeVries, killed Doc, abandoned the crew—all to possess a document that was worthless. He was a man with nowhere left to go.

Walter filed that away. Carefully. Quietly.

Where Roy went, he would follow. Whatever Roy did next, Walter would be ready.

Because dead men get no second chances. But a man who’s already lost everything?

He’s got nothing left to fear.