Page 117 of Keller

"Can you trace the originating analyst? I'd like to do an interrogation of my own," Ridge says. His voice carries no inflection, but I know his cool demeanor sometimes hides his ruthlessness when necessary.

Wells nods, fingers moving across the keyboard. "The inquiry was kicked up from a preliminary corporate pattern review. Standard stuff."

"I want a name," Ridge repeats.

"Give me a second." Wells pulls up another window. More text, more timestamps. His brow furrows as he cross-references something. "The recommendation memo that triggered the threshold review came from a single analyst on the Federal side.."

My chest tightens. A cold sensation spreads through my ribs, but I don't move. I don't even blink.

Wells turns the laptop toward Ridge as the PDF loads. The large screen displays what Ridge is looking at on the laptop. It's an internal routing document, and at the bottom, a name.

"Quinn Mercer."

The words hit me like a fist to the sternum.

I don't react. Not outwardly. My hands stay flat on the table, my expression remaining neutral. But inside, my soul cracks. Something fundamental shifts and splinters and goes very, very quiet.

Quinn.

The room is suddenly airless, like someone sealed us in and started pumping out the oxygen.

"How certain?" My voice comes out level and steady. I don't know how I manage it.

Wells turns the laptop around and types something. "Metadata is clean. Internal routing confirms she authored the threshold recommendation. It went up the chain from there."

I nod once, keeping my eyes fixed on the table.

Quinn.

Fucking Quinn.

Quinn in my bed. Quinn laughing at the oyster bar. Quinn letting me wash her hair in the shower while the storm rattled the windows.

Quinn sitting across from me at Maison Gris, asking about my work, about my family, about my life. Taking invisible notes, cataloging details, and filing them away for later use.

My mind rewinds. Every conversation, every question she asked. Every time she deflected when I asked about her work as a government auditor, as she called it, with a financial background.

I believed her.

I believed all of it.

Wells keeps talking, something about containment protocols and document preservation. His voice becomes background noise, a low hum beneath the roar building inside my skull.

My mind won't stop rewinding.

The gala. Quinn in that green dress, stepping out of Senator Mercer's orbit to talk to me. I thought it was chemistry. Attraction. The pull of something real between two strangers.

Now I see it differently. She positioned herself. She knew exactly who I was before I said a word.

Government auditor. Financial background.

She was building a file.

Last night on her deck, when I mentioned October, when I told her that we had to come home early to deal with something, she fucking knew and didn't let on at all.

She's diabolical. How the fuck did I fall for this shit?

Her voice echoes in my memory, and I hear it differently now. Not sympathy, strategy, a careful neutral response designed to keep me talking without revealing what she already understood.