“Were you not warned off doing exactly that?” Grant asked.
Madden’s chin lifted in a faintly mutinous tilt. “Technically, we were warned off the investigation into Willie Sanders’ murder, which was never our focus to begin with.”
A muscle jumped in Grant’s jaw, but he didn’t correct her or call her out on the technicality. “What exactly have you been doing?”
Madden only blinked at him. “Other than speaking to everyone the department spoke to about Priya’s disappearance? Whatever research we can. Since Carson conveniently made sure that my FOIA request was stonewalled, I haven’t spoken to anyone directly.”
Of course she wouldn’t betray Rosa.
Grant pinned her with his gaze, but Madden only stared back at him.
Finally, he sighed. “Do you have any reason to think that your involvement has… upset someone?”
It was my turn to stare at him. The restraint it took not to snap back surprised me. Maybe because I was past rage now. Past shock. What was left was colder. Heavier.
“You mean aside from the fact that someone chained her inside her boat and set it on fire?” I said.
The silence that followed was loaded.
Grant angled his head in acknowledgment. “That’s fair.”
He asked a few more questions after that, but they were procedural. Loose ends. Time stamps. Who knew what. None of it went anywhere useful. Whatever line had been crossed tonight hadn’t left a paper trail behind, and given the remains of the boat had sunk, there was unlikely to be much in the way of physical evidence to process.
Finally, Grant closed his notebook. “If you think of anything else—anything at all—please call.”
She nodded.
Grant hesitated, eyes flicking between us again—taking in the oxygen, the IV, the way I hadn’t moved more than a foot from her side since he walked in.
“Take care of yourself,” he added, quieter.
The door closed behind him with a quiet, deliberate click that sounded far too final for a room this small.
For a second, I expected the world to rush back in. To hear voices in the hall, the scrape of shoes, the hum of movement that meant things were still happening. Instead, there was only the low hum of the oxygen and the faint buzz of the overhead lights.
Too quiet.
I stayed where I was, standing close enough to Madden’s bed that I could reach her without leaning, far enough away that it still looked like restraint instead of instinct. My hands ached with the need to do something—anything—and there was nothing left to do.
No fire to fight.
No door to break through.
No one to pull out of harm’s way.
Just the knowledge that someone had tried to kill her, and the sick certainty that if the timing had been even slightly off, I’d be standing in this room alone. Or not standing at all.
Madden lay back against the pillows, oxygen still in place, her skin pale beneath the harsh clinic lights. The color had come back to her cheeks since the dock, but she looked wrung out in a way that went deeper than smoke or shock. As if her body had finally been allowed to stop and hadn’t yet decided whether it was safe to start again.
At last, I dragged a chair closer and sat, elbows braced on my knees, hands hanging uselessly between them. The burns on my arm throbbed now that the adrenaline had fully burned off, a deep, pulsing ache that felt almost welcome. Pain I understood. Pain I could catalog and endure.
This—whatever this was—I had no system for.
“You okay?” I asked.
It was a useless question. We both knew it. But it was the only one that didn’t feel like pushing.
She nodded anyway. “I think so.”
