Page 61 of Undertow

“That’s because realtors are invisible.”

“That’s the whole point.”

Cara dressed herself last. She always did—you dressed everyone else first, because other people’s costumes required objectivity and your own required something closer to instinct. She’d picked her pieces without trying them on.

Dark jeans that actually fit. A charcoal V-neck, simple, expensive looking. Low-heeled ankle boots, black. She twisted her hair up off her neck.

She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror and stilled.

This woman looked like she belonged in a city—like she’d walked out of a meeting on Market Street and was heading somewhere better. She looked sharp, composed, and a little dangerous.

She turned back to the room and found Gabe studying her.

He didn’t look away.

She did.

While Wade wrestled with the blazer’s existence, Cara laid out the plan. Gabe and Cara would scout the Whitfield Foundation office—find the building, map the entrances, figure out how to get to the sixteenth floor. Tom would keep working the digital trail from the hotel, chasing the shell companies and the lab at the end of the money chain. Reagan would work her contacts—she thought she had a line on someone inside the Foundation’s SF office who might talk. Wade ran security. Elena and Piper stayed with Tom.

“All of this,” Cara said, “because somewhere in that office, there’s a paper trail that connects Graham Whitfield to every dollar he moved. And when we find it, we own him.”

Piper had her phone up.

Wade caught the movement half a second too late. “What are you doing?”

Piper’s thumb moved.

“Who are you texting?”

“No one.”

“Was that Diane?”

Piper put her phone behind her back. The phone buzzed. She glanced at it.

Wade, attempting to sound like he didn’t care: “What did she say?”

“She said you clean up nice.”

Wade’s ears went red. He did not take off the blazer.

A moment later, Diane sent a photo: Agent the cat sprawled across the bakery counter on his back, one paw draped over a cooling rack. Piper turned the screen so everyone could see, and for a second—just one—the room went quiet in a different way. Haven Cove was still there. The bakery was still standing. The cat was still ridiculous. And somewhere on that coast, a life was waiting for them to come back to it.

Reagan crossed the room. Reached up and straightened Tom’s collar, her fingers lingering on the fabric. “You had a tag showing.”

Their eyes held.

Behind Reagan’s back, Piper mimed a heart with both hands.

Cara’s phone rang as they were cleaning up the tags and tissue paper. The screen read DEREK VOSS.

The room went still. Cara held up a hand and stepped into the bathroom, pulling the door mostly closed. “Hello, Derek.”

“Cara. Hi.” Warm. Concerned. “I just wanted to check in. Any news on Elena? Is she safe? How’s your team holding up?”

"Everyone's fine." Like he cared. "We're making progress."

"Good. Good." A beat. "And Elena? Any sign?"