Page 64 of Undertow

“Absolutely.” He smiled. It was the hardest thing he’d done all day. “I was just thinking—my wife will want to see the financials before we commit. Does the Foundation publish an annual report?”

“Oh, of course! Let me grab that for you.” Jess excused herself toward a supply room.

Gabe resisted the urge to move—to walk toward that corridor and look for Cara, to listen for the click of a keycard or the whisper of a drawer opening.

Cara appeared around the corner.

She was composed. Unhurried.

She reached his side at the exact moment Jess returned with a glossy annual report.

“Sorry about that.” Cara said, her smile was perfect. “Shall we continue?”

They finished the tour. Cara promised to be in touch after she and her husband discussed things over the weekend. Jess beamed. The elevator doors closed.

Gabe exhaled.“Well?”

“That went well, don’t you think?” She responded brightly, still in character.

The code was clear. She’d gotten the intel.

They waited until they’d crossed the street and rounded another corner before she explained what she’d gotten: contract after contract—authorizing memos with Graham’s signature on the left and, on the right, countersignatures from corporate entities with names that sounded like they’d been generated by a medical thesaurus. Meridian Health Partners. Cascadia BioLogistics. Apex Geriatric Solutions.

“Twelve contracts,” Cara said. “Six entities. Three recurring signatures on the receiving side. I don’t recognize any of them. Tom will.”

“The keycard worked?”

A smile ghosted across her face. “We owe Reagan’s contact. Big time.”

Gabe looked at her. The donor persona was falling away—the silk-blouse warmth replaced by something sharper and more real. The fugitive, the baker, the flour-dusted apron and the cinnamon rolls and the small-town smile—those were the disguise. This woman, the one who’d walked into a locked room and walked out in four minutes with twelve contracts on her phone—this was closer to the real her.

That terrified him. Not because she was dangerous. Because he was falling for someone he hadn’t fully met yet.

Cara smiled—a real smile, not the donor’s, not the baker’s. For the first time since the coast, they weren’t running. They were winning.

33

Tom had the photos spread across three screens by the time Cara changed back into her normal clothes.

Not photos — scans, technically. Photographs of photographs, taken on Cara's phone in a sixteenth-floor office while Gabe kept a Foundation administrator busy with questions about endowment structures and Wade stood in the hallway looking like a realtor who'd wandered onto the wrong floor. Three hours of smiling and calibrating and pretending to be a woman with money to invest, and this was the haul: twelve contracts, six corporate entities, and a pattern Tom had been staring at for twenty minutes without blinking.

"Meridian Health Partners," he said, tapping the first screen. "Cascadia BioLogistics. Apex Geriatric Solutions." He pulled up another. "Pacific Ridge Medical Holdings. Coastal Therapeutics LLC. And this gem — Evergreen Integrated Care." He looked up. "Every one of these entities received funds authorized by Graham Whitfield's signature. Every one of them has a countersignature from a different corporate officer. Three recurring names across all six entities."

"Shell companies," Reagan said from the window.

"Six layers of them. Each one registered in a different state. Each one hiding behind the next." Tom clicked through the documents, the web of arrows and boxes collapsing inward on his screen. "The structure is sophisticated. Six layers of corporate insulation for what looks like a single research program. That takes money. Lawyers. Time."

"So Graham's the architect," Gabe said.

"Graham's the name on the paper," Tom said carefully. He rubbed his eyes. Fourteen hours at these screens and it showed — the hacker-cosplaying-analyst look Cara had assembled for him was rumpled, sleeves shoved up, collar askew.

The observation hung there. Nobody picked it up. They had a name and a trail and that was enough for now.

Tom stopped. His hands came off the keyboard. He looked at Elena on the couch, then at Reagan by the window. Something passed between them — the silent negotiation of adults deciding how much truth a room could hold.

Reagan gave a small shake of her head. Not now.

Elena caught it. "Say it. Whatever it is. Say it."