“It isn’t about belief,” Mara says. Paper rustles on her end. She’s reading and pacing. “It’s about not training her to expect a veto every time we get nervous. I already told them to keep the line intact. I don’t have time to babysit their instinct to overprotect.”
“Good,” I say. “Sell the protection we do as structure, not leash. And dress the house. I want the pilot site staged like a boutique retreat: spa-level privacy, no visible security, no badges in sight. If a door needs a key, hide the reader. If a nurse wants to wear a lanyard, tell her to leave it on the desk and memorize her rounds.”
“Survivors will be off-site,” she says, a reminder and a warning in one. “We promised this wing would never hold actual clients while we test protocols. You are not walking her past anyone we owe real silence to.”
“Off-site,” I confirm. “We’re building a story, not a parade.”
“You’re building a gilded cage and calling it a rehearsal,” she accuses.
I let it land. “It will look like a haven,” I say. “It will function like a perimeter. That is the point. We teach her to read our words as walls and our walls as care. If she learns that, she becomes a partner. If she refuses, we at least limit the radius of the damage.”
“Reid is going to tell you we’re already over the line,” she says. “He pinged me. He thinks rerouting her search to our decoy pages was a step into entrapment.”
“We’re past lines,” I say. “This is not a classroom. This is a ward. Hesitation kills.”
“I know what a ward is,” she says, quiet. Then, lighter, the way you reset an artery when you feel the bleed tightening, “She addedno press or social media about my visit without consent.We’re agreeing.”
“We’re agreeing,” I say. “And we’re filming nothing that can be cut out of context. If documentation has to happen, it will be handwritten notes on paper that never leaves the building.”
“She wants to meet at ten,” Mara continues. “Legal will have her edits redlined and ready. Your name on the signature line?”
“Put mine. She needs to see it when she signs,” I say. “And Mara—dress the room where we meet like we’re normal. No glass, no view. Wood table. Real chairs. Coffee she doesn’t have to ask for. Give the friend a seat that faces a door, not a wall.”
“You want her to feel like she can leave,” she says. “Because you want to be able to say she chose to stay.”
“Because it’s true. I’m not in the business of kidnapping, however often you accuse me of it in my head.”
“I don’t accuse.” She shrugs. “I label. It keeps both of us from lying.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. “Then label this: she asked for a tour. We offered immersion. I’m going to deliver exactly what we wrote and exactly what I promised.”
“Careful which promise you think you made,” Mara says. “I’ll see you at nine-fifty with paper and a tone that says we’re human beings.”
The line clicks into the same quiet the room had before she filled it with a spine. I flip the folio to the page markedTour Script — Artist Cohortand scratch out half a paragraph that reads like I thought artists want to be coddled. Replace it with three sentences:
You will see less than you imagine and more than most.
If at any point you feel this is wrong, say so and we will leave.
You may take nothing that takes from anyone else.
The secure phone at my elbow buzzes in a tritone that means Reid. I answer without moving the tablet.
“Containment status,” he says. He always begins there.
“She accepted,” I say. “With conditions. We approved. Ten a.m. meeting. I want Lila vetted to the bone by sunrise—her phones, her social, her habits. She’s the friend and the witness. We will treat her like both.”
“On it,” he says. “Gomez has a cousin who’s a lawyer; he’s on the calendar. He has a reflexive hate for rich men’s signatures. We’ll disarm him with courtesy and coffee.”
“Good,” I say. “Jonah?”
“Soft containment in progress,” Reid says. “We dangled a short-fuse commission in Philly for a hospital wing. Wall size, quick turnaround, good money. He thinks it’s a chance to do something that matters. It is. He leaves at noon for a site check and a check in hand.”
“Keep it quiet,” I say. “No heavy hand. No threats. He’s not a problem unless someone decides he should be one. He stays a story about a mural, not a footnote in a file.”
“And the driver?” Reid asks.
“Kellan,” I say. “He’s the only one who can make a car feel like a room you own without blinking. Route along the harbor. No bridges today. No tunnels. I want her with horizon in the periphery, not concrete in her nose.”
