Too weak. Too acidic. Brewster knew how I took it. Which meant he hadn’t made it, or he had and chose not to remember. Either way, message received.
I stopped short of the counter.
Not consciously at first. My feet simply… didn’t go there.
That stretch of granite—cool, unremarkable—might as well have been electrified. I rerouted myself without comment, opening cabinets I didn’t need to open, busying my hands while my body made decisions my mouth refused to acknowledge.
That was when I saw it.
A button.
Small. White. Familiar.
It sat near the edge of the counter, absurdly mundane, like it had always belonged there. I recognized it immediately—not because it was special, but because it was not. Third button down. Cheap stitching. A shirt I’d owned for years and thought nothing of until it hadn’t survived the night intact.
I stared at it longer than necessary.
Then I picked it up, rolled it between my fingers once, and dropped it into the trash.
I didn’t miss.
Agents moved through the house like ghosts. Efficient. Quiet. A different team than yesterday. More senior. Less curious. Someone had adjusted the perimeter overnight, and it showed.
Brewster was not among them.
I poured the coffee anyway and drank it standing up, leaning against the far counter—thesafecounter—because sitting felt like I was surrendering something. My body complained again when I shifted my weight.
Good.
Let it.
Pain was honest. It didn’t lie the way people did.
My phone buzzed.
Celia first.
Then the network.
Then Flint.
I ignored all three and opened my laptop instead.
Masters’ name was already everywhere—buried in local reporting, wrapped in euphemism and half-truths. “Municipal employee.” “Ongoing investigation.” “No confirmed connection.”
The lie wasn’t that they didn’t know. The lie was that they didn’t want us to know they knew.
My inbox pinged again—this time internal. Archive access logs. A minor permissions flag. Someone had touched a file they weren’t supposed to touch and thought no one would notice.
Someone always thought that.
I flagged it and sent it on without comment.
Professional. Clean. Controlled.
My body still ached. The kitchen counter still existed. Brewster still hadn’t appeared.
I told myself the order didn’t matter.
