He filled the kettle.The kitchen was small enough that he could hear her breathing from the stove—ragged at first, then steadying as she worked to bring herself back under control.He didn't comment on it.Some battles you fought alone, even when someone else was in the room.
By the time he returned with two mugs, she had the album open to the first page.
They workedin near silence for the first hour.
Caleb photographed each page, uploading to a secure server while Harper cross-referenced names against her own research.The album was a time capsule of obsessive documentation—newspaper clippings arranged chronologically, photographs cut from community newsletters, property records copied by hand.Geri's neat handwriting filled the margins.Names circled.Dates underlined.Arrows connecting people and places in a web that only she had fully understood.
"1992," Harper read."Margaret Crane dies of a heart attack one week before she was supposed to report irregularities at the county clerk's office."
She turned pages.Caleb watched her hands move, steady now, the trembling from the car gone.
"1998.Seth Spears, contractor, car accident after refusing to work with Coastal Venture Partners.2003.The Blossom Springs Heraldruns a story on suspicious property sales.Editor resigns three weeks later."
"Edward Marsh," Caleb said.
Harper looked up."You know him?"
"TheHerald'sformer editor.His paper went under two years ago.Advertisers pulled out overnight."
"He's in here.Multiple entries."She flipped forward, scanning."Geri tracked everything that happened to him."
She paused on a page toward the middle of the album.Her finger traced a death notice clipped from faded newsprint.
"Daniel Bennett," she read."2018.Heart attack.No sign of heart issues prior."
The name landed hard.Harper's finger stilled on the page.
"Bennett," Caleb said."As in?—"
"Lila Bennett.Ronan's wife."
He took the album from her, careful to avoid her fingers.The entry was brief—the death notice, a few handwritten notes about the lack of prior medical issues.
"Does Ronan know?"
"About the heart attack.About it being connected to all of this?"Caleb set the album down."Yes.The timing fits.Daniel Bennett was keeping records of inconsistent property lines and sales."
Harper was quiet for a moment.Her hand rested flat on the album page, covering Daniel Bennett's death notice like she was shielding it from something.
"Isak had a source," she said."Someone who was going to give him the name at the top.They were supposed to meet the morning after he called me."
"And he never made it."
"Two bullets.Parking garage in Mobile.Before dawn."
Caleb thought of Margaret Crane in her kitchen.Daniel Bennett's induced heart attack.Nova Boone at the bottom of a staircase.The pattern was decades old.And the body count kept rising.
"Ronan took down Warren Caldwell.Daniel Bennett's heart attack was drug-induced.The medical examiner testified to it in court.We assumed Warren was just a cog in the wheel, but not that those other cogs, nor the person manipulating the wheel was here in Blossom Springs.If the people behind this realize?—"
Caleb pulled out his phone."I've been in contact with Ronan.He's aware Caldwell wasn't the end.But this changes things."
He typed on the encrypted channel.
New development.Significant.Call when you have ten.
The response came fast.
Five minutes.Lila's in the shower.
