I heard myself say, “You mean hide him.”
Wade looked at me at last. “Yes.”
The word had no decoration.
I crossed my arms because my hands had started shaking. “If I found him.”
“Yes.”
“If Elise found him.”
“Yes.”
“If Jonah found him.”
Wade’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
Jonah stepped back as if the answer had a smell. “You would have moved a dying man from hospice to hospice to keep his wife and children away.”
“I would have done what I promised.”
Jonah laughed once, hard and disbelieving. “That’s your defense?”
“No.” Wade’s eyes flashed then, the first sign of anger, though whether it was aimed at Jonah or himself I could not tell. “It’s not a defense. I’m telling you what happened.”
I pointed toward the camera. “Play it.”
Wade hesitated.
“Play the rest.”
His gaze shifted to me, searching my face for something I would not give him. Permission to protect me, perhaps. Forgiveness in advance. Whatever he wanted, he did not find it. He reached past Jonah, pressed the button, and Randall moved again on the wall.
