Sent twelve minutes after Pete had taken her badge.
She stared at the message, then locked the screen without answering.
The elevator arrived.
By the time she reached the second floor, another message waited.
Caleb’s code was used at the marina gate at 5:15 AM the morning Cass was attacked.
Evidence. Proof that pointed somewhere other than her.
She read that message twice. Then put the phone away again.
The Evergreen Tide’s grand ballroom sat dark and unfinished. The chandeliers were off. The tables were bare.
A Christmas tree stood in the corner, unlit, its ornaments still packed in boxes beside it.
The room smelled faintly of cardboard and lemon polish.
She crossed the room. Habit more than purpose.
A chair near the dance floor was angled wrong. She turned it a few inches.
One of the placement diagrams had slipped half out of its plastic sleeve. She straightened it.
Near the windows, a stack of folded linens sat on a rolling cart waiting for tomorrow’s setup. She checked the inventory tag.
Twenty-four round tables.
Two hundred and ten place settings.
Three backup cartons of glassware.
Everything exactly where it was supposed to be.
A laugh escaped her before she could help it. No badge. No authority. Possibly no career. And she was still checking inventory.
Her phone buzzed.
Talk to me.
Three words.
Simple. Direct. Pure Evan.
Her thumb hovered over the call button.
One tap and she could hear his voice.
One tap and he would answer.
Instead she locked the screen and slipped the phone back into her pocket.
Two days ago, this had been item sixty-three on her checklist.
She’d had a vision for it. White tablecloths. Silver centerpieces. The chandeliers glowing low. The tree lit. The ocean dark beyond the windows.
That was what nobody told you about event planning. You didn’t just build rooms. You built futures. Versions of the night where everything worked exactly the way it was supposed to.
