“Coincidence.”
“You have a tell.”
He goes very still. The real stillness, not the performed version. “What tell?”
I close my tablet. “I’ll add it to your file.”
I hand him a printed packet. “Homework.” He takes the packet, fingers brushing mine. Neither of us moves first.
His brows rise. He stares at it. “Conflict triggers journal?”
“Due tomorrow.”
His expression moves through confusion, recognition, and arriving at genuine personal offense in about two seconds.
“There’s a butterfly on it.”
“The content is the same regardless of the cover.”
He holds it at arm’s length, as if it might be contagious. “This is my conflict triggers journal.”
“Correct.”
“With abutterfly.”
“It was the last one.”
“The last—” He looks at me. “You went to a store. Looked at journals. This is the one you chose?”
“I ordered it online. It arrived this morning.”
“You ordered a butterfly on it for a professional hockey enforcer.”
“I ordered a conflict triggers journal for a high-priority conduct case.” I gather my notes. “The picture was not the selection criterion.”
He turns it over. A smaller butterfly is featured on the back cover. And a quote in calligraphy script: Every ending is a new beginning. He reads it. My gaze meets his. Again, he reads it.
From outside the glass, Scott Fusak has pressed his face to the window. He sees the journal. His mouth falls open. He pulls out his phone.
“Stevens,” I say. “The homework is due Thursday.”
“With the butterfly journal.”
“With that journal, yes.”
He holds it up so Fuze can see it through the glass. Fuze takes the photo. I watch it happen and I do not react because I have made a commitment to non-reaction that I intend to honor until I retire. Then he pins me with his gaze, dead serious. “Tell me what the tell is.”
“Goodnight, Mr. Stevens.”
“It’s eleven a.m.”
“Figuratively.”
I walk toward the tunnel. Behind me, I hear him mumble to Trey, I can’t make it out, and Trey’s response, which I also can’tmake out, and then the sound of Max’s skates on the ice — a short, sharp stop. Frustrated.
Good.
He spends the next four days trying to figure out what his tell is. Scott tells me, because Fuze tells everyone everything, because Scott Fusak is constitutionally incapable of keeping information in his body.
