Chapter 11 · Bring Me the Ledger

"Where's the witness?"

Mara shoved the door open before I could knock. Her jacket was gone, sleeves rolled up, and there was dust in her hair like she'd been digging through something that hadn't been touched in years.

"Inside," she said. "Now."

I stepped in. The safe house was smaller than I expected—one room, a cot shoved against the wall, a folding table with a laptop and about six empty coffee cups. The window had bars. The kind you don't open from the inside.

"You dragged me across the city for this?" I said.

"I dragged you because you're the only one who remembers." She locked the door behind me. Two bolts. "And because if my partner turned, you're the only person I can afford to trust right now."

"That's not trust," I said. "That's desperation."

"Same thing in this job."

She moved past me to the table and flipped the laptop around. The screen showed a still frame from tunnel footage—grainy, time-stamped 11:43. A figure in a city investigator's coat standing next to a van. The plates were blurred out, but I knew the silhouette.

"Your partner," I said.

"Owen Kade." Her voice went flat.