"Keep it secret," he said, and the words were neither a command nor a favor, but the kind of thing that held weight because the speaker had no interest in telling anything beyond what was necessary.
One night a phone call changed the mood. The voice on the other end said the number—three crisp beats—and then said "exclusive" with a sigh that sounded like someone closing a case file. "There was a recording," the caller said. "Three voices. And an argument. And a lullaby. And someone crying. It was private, and then it wasn’t." They would not say more. The leak had come from inside a home the size of a rumor.
"Whose conversation?" Raka pressed.