PART 17:

He let that land before he continued. We think they’re planning to test new weapons systems there. Things that would never get cleared on American or European soil. Systems that haven’t gone through the oversight they’d require here. Mara’s free hand found the edge of the desk. Her fingers pressed into it slowly without her deciding to.

Mara. His voice dropped further. You’re inside Campbell’s world now. You have access to things I don’t. All I’m asking is this. Find out what the Ravnic factory is actually for. Is it really defense production? Or is it something else? He paused. Not for effect, she knew, but because this was the part that cost him something to ask.

If you can find a document, a contract, an email, anything that shows the real purpose of what they’re building there. The Seattle skyline was doing nothing useful. Mara pressed her thumbnail against her palm. Not hard enough to mark, just enough to feel. I need to think about it. Her voice came out even. And don’t read that as a yes.

I wouldn’t. Something in his voice softened. Not the cause, not the argument, but the person underneath both of those things. The one she’d known before she knew how to be careful with herself. I’ve always believed in you, Mara. Even when everything around you was pulling you in directions you didn’t choose.

The words came quieter now, stripped of the argument. I believed you actually cared about people. That you wanted to leave things better than you found them. She didn’t speak. His voice dropped to something that had nothing to do with Campbell Group or Ravnic or any of it. You know that I loved you, Mara. More than I’ve known how to say.

You were someone I could have trusted with everything I was. He stopped there. Let it breathe. Make this decision with your conscience. Not with strategy. The call ended. Mara put her phone face down on the desk. She looked at the window, at the ferry light still moving across the sound, at the city that had no opinion about any of this.

Her thumbnail had left a faint mark on her palm where she’d pressed it. The problem wasn’t deciding, she thought. The problem was that she already knew what her conscience was going to say, and she wasn’t ready to hear it yet. She pulled up her inbox. Her hands were steady. She made sure of that first. The Campbell Group call had ended 20 minutes ago.

Three of the feeds on Nolan’s screens were still running the tail end of it. Men in conference rooms on different continents, the bland language of acquisition discussions, logistics wrapped in the vocabulary of investment. He’d been in that world long enough to hear what lived underneath the words. Michael was standing to his left, the way he always stood, slightly back, slightly angled, close enough to hear, but never in the way.

Preston didn’t contact her. Michael kept his voice even and factual, the way Nolan preferred information. She was in the office all day, lunch at her desk, four calls from her personal phone. He paused. One second, no longer. Three of them tracked. A friend, dry cleaner, a client of Whitmore’s. Nolan turned from the Campbell feeds.

The fourth? Unknown number. Michael’s jaw shifted slightly. The kind of phone that gets bought with cash and used once or twice. Nolan looked at him for a moment. Not Preston. No. Nolan’s eyes came back to the screen. Then who? Michael’s expression stayed even. Working on it. Give me a few days. We’ll have the city of origin and where it was purchased.

Nolan nodded once and turned back to the screens. He pulled up the morning’s security footage. The time stamp read 6:41. Mara in the front corridor, coat on, bag on her shoulder, shoes in her hand, moving quickly and quietly, the way someone moves when they’re trying not to be heard. He watched it once, then he stopped it.

The frame froze on her face. Her eyes. She was looking toward the front door, but for the half second before she looked away, there was something in her expression he hadn’t been able to name the first time he’d seen it. He still couldn’t entirely. His jaw tightened. Mara Whitmore. The name came out low, barely audible, not really for Michael.

Full of surprises, aren’t you? He left the frame frozen and reached for the Campbell files. The city was doing that thing it did in the late afternoon, the light coming in sideways off the water, turning everything briefly gold before the gray came back. Mara was watching it through the car window without seeing much of it.

George glanced at her in the rearview mirror. You all right, Miss Whitmore? His voice had the careful tone of someone who’d noticed something but wasn’t going to push it. Something on your mind? No. She caught herself. Sorry. Long day. He nodded and returned his eyes to the road. She was watching the light on the buildings for a moment longer, then George, did you know Evelyn Campbell? The question landed quietly between them.

In the mirror, something moved across his face. Not surprise, exactly, more like a door opening that he’d been keeping carefully shut. I’ve worked for Mr. Campbell 15 years. His voice came out measured, with something underneath it that was real. Of course, I knew her. His hands stayed steady on the wheel. I was very fond of her.

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