Chapter 23 · Behind the Cedar Latch

"That's my license number," I said. "And that's my name."

The manifest lay flat between us on the scarred desk. Neither of us touched it.

"Bottom line," Owen said.

"I can read."

"Then read it out loud."

I dragged the paper around with two fingers. My flank pulled hard when I leaned. The tape on my bandage had given up an hour ago, peeling back against my ribs, cold air biting into fresh stitches.

Rows. Container numbers. Tonnage. Standard freight office shorthand—clean, sterile, completely scrubbed of blood.

"Medical consumables," I read. "Sterile dressings. Saline. Forty cases."

"And?"

"Certifying clinician." I tapped the line with my nail. "Right there. Eleven weeks dead, stamped on a live manifest like I still sign his orders."

Underneath it, in tight blue ink: *E. Worth*.

My mouth went bone-dry. Not from shock. Just that raw, vile burn of seeing an ex-partner's handwriting on a fresh crime.

"That's Eliot," I said.

"You're sure."

"He loops the *W* like he's signing a birthday card. I stared at that loop for four years while clinic supplies walked out the back door." I dragged my finger down to the net weight. "Wait. This is wrong."

Owen didn't move.