"You published my picture." She said it like an observation. No anger. Just fact. "It made things harder. I had to adjust my plans."
"How did you get in here?"
"Walked in this morning. Maintenance uniform, borrowed badge. Hid in the basement until everyone left." A thin smile crossed her face. "It's not hard to be invisible."
My phone was on my desk. Three feet away.
Rebecca shook her head. "Don't. Please. I just want to talk."
Something in her voice stopped me. The crack underneath the calm. The exhaustion of someone who'd been carrying something heavy for far too long.
I knew that weight.
"About Emma." Her voice cracked on the name. Just slightly. Just enough to remind me that underneath everything, she was still a mother. Still grieving. "About Garrett Stone. About the happy ending he's getting while my daughter is in the ground."
"I know about Emma," I said quietly. "I know what happened to her."
Rebecca's eyes flickered. Surprise, maybe. That I knew her daughter's name. That I'd done more than just chase her as a story.
"Garrett tried to save her. He went into that building. He almost reached her."
"Almost." Rebecca's eyes went hard. "Almost doesn't mean anything when your child is dead."
"No." My throat tightened. "It doesn't."
The bathroom floor. The blood. The way my body had betrayed me, had taken something I wanted so badly before I ever got to hold her.
I'd never seen her face. Never heard her cry. But I'd loved her. And losing her had nearly destroyed me.
"I'm so sorry." The words came out rough. "What happened to Emma should never have happened."
She stared at me. Something shifted in her face. Like she hadn't expected that. Like she'd been bracing for an argument and found something else instead.
"I know what it's like to lose a child." Barely above a whisper. "Not the same way. Not for as long. But I know what it does to you. How you wake up every morning and for one second you forget, and then you remember, and it's like losing them all over again."
Rebecca's composure cracked. Just for a moment. Her lip trembled and her eyes went bright with tears she was fighting not to shed.
"You lost a child?"
"Years ago. Before she was born." I swallowed. "I never got to meet her. But I wanted her. So much."
The silence stretched between us.
Two women who knew what it meant to have something precious ripped away.
"I'm sorry," Rebecca said. And she meant it.
"I know you are."
"And I know nothing I say can make what happened to Emma okay. Nothing can bring her back. But the system that failed her, they're being held accountable now."
"Not fast enough."
"I know it feels that way."
"You don't know." A step closer.
"Rebecca."
