# Chapter Twenty-Two: A Visitor at the StationMarcus called him into the back office two days after the club, and Caleb went in half-expecting a lecture about split knuckles and a man who'd apparently filed a complaint against the department for excessive force, though nothing in Marcus's expression suggested trouble."Sit down," Marcus said, closing the door behind him. "You're not in trouble, so you can stop making that face.""What face.""The one that says you're already rehearsing an explanation." Marcus dropped into the chair behind his desk and studied Caleb for a moment with something that looked almost like pride, an expression Caleb had rarely seen aimed at him from a superior since the day Preston had gotten the deputy chief post out from under him. "Cedar Ridge went well for you. Better than well. The eastern line held because of your crew, and the department's gotten three separate calls from county officials wanting to know who led it.""Just doing the job.""That's exa

# Chapter Twenty-Four: No Longer Your Business"Nobody asked you to prove anything," Caleb said.Vanessa's eyes cut to Nadia, taking in the blazer, the composed posture, the easy way she'd offered a hand a moment ago as though she had nothing at all to hide. Something ugly flickered across Vanessa's face, quickly smoothed over into the cool, superior expression she used on reporters who asked questions she'd decided in advance not to answer."I'm his wife," Vanessa said, directing this at Nadia now, each word placed with deliberate weight. "In case that context is useful to you. Whatever he's paying you to stand here looking supportive, I'd think carefully about the arrangement.""Nobody's paying anyone," Caleb said."Actually," Nadia said, entirely too pleasantly, clearly enjoying herself now that the shock had worn off, "he turned down my extremely generous offer about ninety seconds before you walked in. Something about moral compasses. It was very touching."Vanessa's gaze snapped

# Chapter Twenty-Six: What She Never Says Out LoudNadia turned her glass another slow half-rotation before she started, like she needed the motion to keep her hands occupied while the rest of her worked up to something harder to hold steady."I'm not heartbroken," she said. "I want to start there, because I know what it looked like, the night you met me. A woman burning photos and threatening to jump out a window — that reads like a breakup. It wasn't.""I figured that much out somewhere around the part where you told me nobody gets a vote in your life.""Perceptive and annoying," she said, a ghost of her earlier lightness surfacing before sinking back down. "My parents died when I was nine. Car accident, nothing dramatic, nothing that makes for a good story — just gone, one Tuesday, and then I wasn't anyone's daughter anymore. The Ellisons took me in. Distant family friends, more money than sense, the kind of wealthy that comes with expectations attached to every kindness like a lea

# Chapter Twenty-Eight: What Isn't Pretend AnymoreNadia didn't want to be dropped off at the motel.She said as much somewhere around the second mile of the drive back into town, her heels already kicked off onto the floor mat, the deep green dress rumpled from an evening of sitting properly and smiling on command."I know that's not what we agreed," she said, watching the dark fields slide past the window. "You drove me, you did the thing, the arrangement's fulfilled. You're allowed to take me home and call it a night.""I didn't say I was taking you home.""You didn't say you weren't, either." A small, tired smile tugged at her mouth. "I've gotten very good at reading men who are deciding something and haven't told me yet. Occupational hazard of my family."Caleb kept his eyes on the road, turning the evening over in his head — Richard's practiced warmth, Desmond's sullen disinterest, and underneath all of it, the old man's eyes holding too long on his face before sliding carefully

# Chapter Thirty: The Brass KettleThe Brass Kettle turned out to be smaller than its name suggested — four tables, a counter with a hand-lettered menu, and the particular hush of a place that had been serving the same regulars long enough to stop needing to try very hard. Margaret was already seated when Caleb arrived, tucked into the corner table by the window, a cane leaning against the chair beside her and a cup of tea she hadn't touched sitting untouched in front of her.She looked better than the last time he'd seen her — color back in her face, the bandage gone from her temple, replaced by a thin pink scar that would likely fade in time. But there was something careful in the way she held herself, the particular stillness of someone who'd rehearsed a conversation enough times that the rehearsal itself had become exhausting."You came," she said, echoing a phrase he'd heard twice already in the last week from someone else entirely, though it landed differently coming from her —