I blinked. Hadn't realized I'd gone quiet.
"Yeah. Sorry. I'm still here."
"You should get some rest. You must be exhausted."
"Yeah." I rubbed a hand over my face. "You should get some sleep, too. It's late."
"I will." A soft sound, maybe a yawn, maybe a smile. I couldn't tell. "Good night, Garrett."
"Good night, Sloane."
The line went dead.
I set the phone on my chest and stared at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the firehouse around me, the creak of bunks, the distant hum of the refrigerator, someone snoring two beds over.
She'd called me. Before bed. Just to hear my voice.
Don't read into it. She was debriefing. That's all.
But I was smiling when I finally closed my eyes.
Sloane showed up at my apartment straight from her meeting with Diaz.
I could tell it had been productive by the way she moved—that restless energy, the barely contained excitement of someone who'd just been handed exactly what they needed.
She spread her notes across my coffee table before I'd even closed the door.
"Three names," she said, pulling a folder from her bag and spreading it open on the coffee table. "Three inspectors who signed off on every single building connected to the shell company network."
I leaned forward, scanning the pages. Bank statements. Deposit records. Dates circled in red.
"Keene's team traced their financials," Sloane continued. "All three have deposits that don't match their salaries. Cash, always cash, always within a week of signing off on a failed inspection."
"The feds moved fast."
"Federal subpoenas open doors local PD can't touch." Sloane tapped one of the highlighted names. "Look."
Thomas Breck.
The fire marshal who'd been pushing hardest for Engine 295's closure. The one who'd buried my reports for years.
His name was right there in black and white, next to a series of five-figure deposits that had no business being in a city employee's checking account.
"We've got him," I said.
"We've got all of them."
The hours blurred together after that. Coffee refills, takeout containers, and the steady accumulation of connections. We mapped the money trail, cross-referenced the inspection dates with the deposits, and built a timeline that showed exactly how long this network had been operating.
By midnight, we had enough to bring down a half-dozen officials.
By one, we'd started drafting Sloane's article, the exposé that would blow the whole thing open.
By two, I noticed she'd gone quiet.
I looked up from my laptop.
She was curled into the corner of my couch, her own laptop balanced on her knees, head tipped back against the cushion.
