Until now.
I skip the dining hall. I get as far as the doorway—the smell of onions, the clatter of trays, too much talking—and I turn around before anyone waves me over.
I go back to my quarters, call the kitchen for a tray, and eat standing at the window, which isn’t so much eating as putting food near my mouth while I stare at a ridgeline I’ve looked at a hundred times and don’t see once.
The light’s going by the time I sit down with the file again.
I check the details a third time, and they still don’t click into place in my head. What clicks is the memory of her not giving me ground in that room. Most people, without meaning to, put a little more space between themselves and something my size. She leaned in. I could swear she did. And I wanted her to.
I close the file.
I open it again, because closing it the first three times hasn’t fixed anything.
I skim the page with her background details. Grace Sangrey. Parents deceased. Taken into the system after the death of her mother. One sister, Serenity, location unknown. Lost to the system. Both taken, only Grace came out.
I try to tally that with the person who killed Samien. Doesn’t compute. Nothing does.
The bear’s been sitting on this all day, low and patient, and every time I put the case in front of him, he goes looking for another gap in the story. That’s new. He’s never been patientwith a suspect before. Suspects get the sharp version—hackles, weight forward, the read that comes back fast because it has to. This isn’t the sharp version, and I can’t explain why I feel this way around a woman I’m supposed to be building a case against.
I pull the schedule instead of arguing with him about it.
“Grace Sangrey,” I realize I’ve said it out loud.
Her name’s on tomorrow’s line. Provisioning run, 0700, a stretch of road I’ve driven before. Two hours out and back. She’ll be alone the whole way, nobody checking on her until the gate logs her return.
She asked for that line. Said she’d be fine on her own.
Why would she do that?
I go back to the file. Viktor’s margin notes flag a string of events that stand out as red flags. At least they do to him. And to the tracker in me.
The bear’s already found a dozen reasons they don’t add up.
Proof. You need proof.
The file may carry weight with the council elders, but I don’t trust anything I haven’t seen with my own eyes. Not somebody’s report of somebody’s report.
Covering bases. Keeping it iron-tight.
That’s true. It’s just not the whole of the truth, and I know that too.
The bear is still. Something settled in him today in that room. Something that pulled her scent in, held it, memorized it.
I sit with the file closed under my hand and plan my next move. Go down there tomorrow. See what she’s up to. Because her wanting that trip feels off. That’s what I should be focused on. Not the bear looking forward to seeing her again. To catching that sweet scent.
I sit there a while longer, turning it over, and I don’t manage to talk myself out of the fact that my bear is content in a way that’s wrong.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be on that road.
I just hope I can hold on to the right reasons why.
Chapter 8
Grace
Kaylin’s got a spoon in one hand and something calling itself oatmeal in front of her when I drop into the seat across from her.
“Tell me you’re not eating that,” I say.
