Delilah Haze's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Delilah Haze had read the pages fourteen times, and she still couldn't prove they meant anything. Six copies sat stuffed under her ink-stained apron. A seventh waited in the P.O. box she'd rented two years ago, for the day she found someone who could burn this open. The pages listed money moved and hidden, signed by names she knew. One name belonged to the man on every bus stop ad she'd passed her whole life, the one running for office all thirty-two years of it. But near the bottom of each page sat one word she couldn't crack. Wren. A code name. Without knowing what it meant, she had nothing but paper. She took the pages to the diner across from her copy shop. She needed a booth, coffee, and quiet to think. The busboy was wiping the same stretch of counter she'd watched him wipe an hour ago. His apron was gray with grease. Beside his rag sat a stack of folded napkins. His hands kept working them, creasing and uncreasing, like he couldn't stop. Delilah had seen him jittery before. Tonight he looked worse. She slid onto the stool near him and spread one page flat. "You ever hear the word Wren?" she asked. "Like a name that isn't a name." The rag stopped. He stared at the page, then at her, and his throat moved. "Two nights ago," he said, low. "Booth by the window. Two men in suits. One kept saying it. Wren gets paid through the shell. Wren signs, nobody sees the real name." He pulled a napkin from his stack and unfolded it. Names ran down it in cramped pen. He tapped one. "They said Wren was him. The one on the ads." Delilah's pulse jumped. "Wren is his cover. So every signature marked Wren—" "Is him," the busboy said. "Hiding." She laid the napkin beside her page. The names matched. The dates matched. The word she couldn't crack now pointed straight at the man's face. The pages weren't noise anymore. They were a map to a lie, and she could read it. For one breath she felt the win. Then the busboy's hand started folding again, faster. "They came back," he whispered. "Last night. Same suits. They asked the manager who works the late shift. They looked at the booth. They know somebody heard." Delilah's stomach dropped. The men had traced the leak to this diner. Now she sat at that same counter, holding proof of exactly what they wanted buried. "They didn't see me," the busboy said. "But they'll come again." She folded the page and pushed it under her apron with the others. She had cracked the code. She could finally prove the money was his. But cracking it had put a target on the one person who'd helped her, and on herself. "Then we find someone who can use this," she said, "before they find us."