Page 142 of What We Become

She sets the file down. “He’s one. Who’s the other?”

“That’s what I need help with.” I fan the remaining files across the table. “Six possibles. Holden flagged three. Milo flagged two. Knox dropped one in front of me this morning with no note, which is very Knox.”

“He flagged a target with no explanation?”

“He circled the man’s photo and wrote ‘yes’ on the back. That’s a Knox brief.”

She almost smiles and picks up the first file. “Okay. Let’s choose.”

“That’s why I waited for you. You’re a Hangman now.”

We work. Side by side, reading through case summaries, cross-referencing Milo’s background data with Holden’s jurisdictional notes. She’s good at this—better than she thinks. She catches smaller, more subtle details the rest of us might miss because we’re male and haven’t been conditioned by society to view everything through the lens of risk.

“This one,” she says after twenty minutes, sliding a file toward me. Raymond Ayre. Fifty-three. Former youth pastor. Multiple allegations spanning a decade, all in different congregations—he’d get accused, resign quietly, move to the next church, start again. The pattern is textbook. The system that enabled it is the same system that enabled every man on every list we have.

“Ayre’s solid,” I say. “Holden had him flagged too.”

“So we’ve got Waldock and Ayre.” She lines the two files up side by side. “Two teams. Two targets. We present these to Odin during the meeting on Tuesday morning, right?”

“Right.”

Sage stretches and does a double take at the vase on the kitchen counter. It isn’t anything fancy, just plain glass holding sunflowers now instead of the tulips Micah had given her.

“Where’d the flowers come from?”

I follow her gaze. “No idea. They were there when I came down after my shower. I figured they were yours. From one of the others.”

“You didn’t think to ask?”

“Ah. No. Knox was with you. Milo would’ve made it a press conference. Holden was already at work, and Micah left before I got up.” I shrug. “Maybe Micah grabbed them from the farmers’ market earlier this morning and we just missed them.”

“So nobody’s claimed them?”

“Not yet.”

“Is there a card?”

“There’s no card.” That much I know. I may have snooped while I was making myself a coffee. “But my money is on Micah. The tulips were starting to wilt, and he notices those things.”

She looks at the sunflowers, her brow furrowing for a moment. “You’re probably right,” she says. “I’ll send a text to thank him.” She taps out the message. “There.” She smiles and sets her phone on the coffee table.

“Feel better now?”

“I do. But there’s something else I’ve been wondering about.”

“What’s that?”

“Why are the meetings with Odin always a Tuesday? And at an ungodly hour too?”

I grin. “The place is called Unholy Desires, and you expect something there to be godly?”

She laughs. “Touché.”

She leans back into the cushions and tilts her head in thought.

“So, am I on Knox’s team because his size makes up for the lack of mine?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “That may have been a factor in the decision.”