And Garrett.
His hand on my shoulder when the wordpregnancyknocked the air from my lungs. The way he'd noticed without me saying anything. Anchored me without making a scene.
Like he could still read me after all these years.
Twice now. Twice I'd waited for him to close the distance.
Twice he hadn't.
Or maybe twiceI hadn't.
Late nights and takeout containers and case files spread across coffee tables. The way we fell into rhythm like we'd never been apart.Maybe we could try again.
Dangerous. Terrifying. Full of possibility.
I turned over. Closed my eyes. But it didn't leave.
CHAPTER 11
Sloane
The interview requesthad taken two weeks to approve.
The Crane file spread across my kitchen table while the coffee brewed. David Crane. Convicted arsonist. Ten years into a twenty-five-year sentence at Sing Sing.
I'd covered his trial when I was twenty-two—a man who systematically burned buildings owned by negligent landlords. Same targets. Same precision. Same controlled burns designed to destroy property, not people.
Either our arsonist had studied Crane's methods, or learned from him directly.
I flipped through the old articles. The trial quotes. The profile I'd built of a man who believed he was delivering justice the system refused to provide.
"These buildings were killing people. Someone had to do something."
The jury hadn't been sympathetic. Neither had I, back then.
But now—after weeks of documenting the same corrupt network, after seeing Garrett's files and the bodies those buildings had claimed—I understood where the rage came from.
I showered, dressed, and pulled my hair back. Professional armor. Press credentials around my neck. The leather messenger bag with my recorder, my notebook, and the questions I'd been refining for days.
The drive to Ossining would take about an hour. I wanted to arrive early.
Crane had refused every interview request for the past decade. Journalists, podcasters, filmmakers—all of them. But he'd agreed to see me.
I wasn't sure why. Whether he remembered me from the trial, or whether he'd heard about the new fires.
Either way.
Sing Sing sat along the Hudson. Concrete and razor wire, and the particular oppression of places built to contain human beings. I'd been to prisons before. They all had the same smell—industrial cleaner and something metallic underneath, like the building itself was bleeding.
The interview room was small. Fluorescent lights. A metal table bolted to the floor. Two chairs facing each other.
David Crane was smaller than I remembered. Sixty-two, graying, hollowed out by a decade behind bars. He moved slowly when the guard brought him in, like his bones had forgotten how to carry weight.
But his eyes were sharp. The eyes of a man who'd spent years watching.
"Ms. Harper." His voice was raspy. Underused. "You covered my trial. Back when you were starting out."
"I remember."
