Page 81 of What We Burn

“Holden. The other matter we discussed at the hospital.” He doesn’t turn around. “Did you take care of it?”

Holden’s jaw locks. I watch it happen—the muscle ticking, the half-second where something moves behind his eyes and gets shut down. He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a curled-up folder. Thinner than the Webster dossier. Plain manila.

“Finished it last night,” Holden says, bending it flat. He slides it down the table.

Odin crosses back, picks it up, and flips it open with one finger. Whatever’s inside, he reads it for exactly two seconds before he closes it again.

But in those two seconds, the angle’s enough that I catch the top sheet. A name clipped to the corner.

Rosaline Gable.

Sage’s nurse. The student one who changed her dressings, held the line on her discharge, braided her hair when Sage couldn’t lift her own arms.

I look at Holden. He’s staring at a point on the wall like he’s trying to set it on fire. Whatever’s in that folder, he hated putting it there.

I don’t understand why Odin wants a file on someone like her.

“Thank you,” Odin says, tucking it inside his jacket. Then he’s gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

Nobody moves for a long moment.

“What the hell was that?” I ask, unable to keep it in anymore.

Holden shakes his head. “Fucked if I know. Man has his reasons.” He shifts his attention to the file containing our target. “Our focus needs to be on this asshole.”

He flips between the photo—a square-jawed man with a coach’s tan and a practiced smile—and the list of complaints. Nine names. Nine kids who told someone, and nine times someone who should have protected them decided it was easier to look away.

My fingers curve into a fist.

“Surveillance starts tomorrow,” Eli decides. “Milo, I want his digital life opened up. Phone, email, cloud storage. If he’s got material, I want to know where it is before we move on him. We hand that to the authorities after the fact—anonymously—so the school can’t bury it again.”

“On it.” Milo nods.

“Knox, I want eyes on his house. Routine, patterns, when the wife and children are home versus when he’s alone. We don’t move when the family is present.”

Knox nods once.

“Holden, you work on the cover story. Figure out what we need to make this look airtight. I don’t want a single loose thread.”

“Understood,” Holden says.

“Micah.” Eli looks at me. “You’re on site logistics. Access points, security, cameras. The campus is gated, but I doubt it’s hardened. Find the gaps.”

“Done.”

With that sorted, Knox pushes back his chair and stands. “I’ll get Sage.”

“Knox.” Holden’s voice stops him. “Let Micah do it.”

Knox looks at me. I nod. He sits.

I push through the door and walk out to the bar. The main floor is empty, club locked, cameras live, security watching from the front corridor. The light over the bar is the only one on, casting a warm circle around the stool where Sage is sitting.

She’s got her phone on the bar top, face down. The drink in front of her is half finished. She’s peeling the label off a coaster with the focused patience of someone who’s been waiting a long time and has made peace with it.

She looks up when she hears me.

“What?” she says. Something in my expression has tipped her off. She’s always been able to read me faster than I’d like.