“What kind of questions?” I press.
Her eyes flick back to mine, hesitation tightening her expression again, but not enough to stop her this time.
“He kept asking about routes,” she says. “Supply routes, patrol overlaps, timing gaps. He kept circling back to the same things like he was trying to map something out.”
My chest tightens slightly as the pattern aligns with everything we have already seen.
“That lines up,” I murmur.
“He wasn’t subtle about it either,” she continues, her voice gaining a little momentum now. “At first, it sounded like curiosity. Then it started sounding like he already knew part of the answer and was trying to confirm the rest.”
“What changed?” I ask.
She hesitates again, but this time the answer comes faster.
“He stopped joking,” she says.
I frown slightly, thrown by that.
“What?”
“Tury always joked,” she explains. “He’d crack something stupid even when things were tense, like he couldn’t stand the silence. But those last few shifts…” She trails off, shaking her head.
“He didn’t,” I finish.
She nods once.
“Not once,” she says. “And he kept checking behind him like he expected someone to be there.”
“That’s not paranoia,” I say.
“No,” she replies quietly. “It didn’t feel like it.”
“What did it feel like?” I ask.
Her gaze locks onto mine, steady now.
“Like he knew he’d already gone too far,” she says.
The words settle into my chest, heavy and sharp.
“Did he say anything to you?” I press.
She hesitates longer this time, her fingers tightening against the crate before she forces them to relax.
“He asked me if I’d ever noticed shipments that didn’t get logged properly,” she says.
I feel something shift deeper, something colder.
“What did you tell him?” I ask.
“I told him it happens,” she says. “That sometimes things get misfiled or systems don’t sync right. That it wasn’t unusual.”
“And he didn’t believe you.”
“No,” she says. “Not even a little.”
“What did he say?”
