* * *
Nicholas arrives at eleven-forty-five. Earlier again. The trendline continues its relentless march toward dawn.
He goes straight to his booth. No hesitation at the door today, no pause at the bar. Laptop out, open, working within thirty seconds. Whatever he found yesterday, he's still chasing it. His typing has the staccato urgency of a man cross-referencingdata — fast bursts, then pauses, then fast bursts again. Search, read, input. Search, read, input.
I watch from the bar. I've given up pretending I'm not watching — Silas already caught me, Jason already called me on it, and my lion is maintaining its cold silence in a way that makes pretending pointless. I watch Nicholas work and I try to read the shape of what he's doing from the rhythm of his keystrokes.
He's in a database. I can tell by the pattern — the typing is search queries, not document composition. He's pulling records, comparing, building something. A spreadsheet, probably. Nicholas builds spreadsheets the way other people build arguments — brick by brick, data point by data point, the architecture of evidence.
At one o'clock, he stops typing. Sits back. Stares at his screen.
The expression on his face is one I recognize, because I've worn it. The look of someone who found the pattern and wishes they hadn't. The moment when the data stops being abstract and becomes personal.
He closes his eyes. Opens them. Picks up his phone. Steps outside.
I watch him through the window. He's in the parking lot, phone to his ear, pacing. Short, tight steps — the movement of a man whose body needs to process something his brain is struggling with. The call is brief — three minutes, maybe four. He comes back inside looking like he swallowed something sharp.
I should leave him alone. The wall is there for a reason. The distance is there for a reason. Delgado's voice is in my head:They send the nice ones first.
But Jason's voice is in my head too:I'd trust the guy whose cat chose him.
And my lion, silent for two days, stirs.
"You okay?" I ask.
Nicholas looks up from his booth. Startled — not by the question, but by me asking it. Three days of distance and I just broke it with two words, and we both know what that means.
"Fine," he says. The automatic response. The word people use when they're not fine and don't have the energy to construct a better lie.
"You don't look fine."
"I'm processing something."
"Work something?"
He hesitates. I can see the calculation — how much to share, how much to hold back, the professional instinct to keep proprietary information locked down. But there's something else in his expression too. The weariness of a man who's been carrying something alone and is reaching the limit of what he can hold.
"I found something in my company's files that doesn't make sense," he says. Carefully. Each word measured. "A pattern I wasn't looking for."
My heart rate spikes. I control it — years of practice, the discipline of a man who lives with shifters and knows that any physiological change is public information. But the spike happens before I can stop it, and Silas, in his corner, turns a page.
"What kind of pattern?" I ask. My voice is steady. My hands are steady. Everything is steady except the animal in my chest that just woke up and is paying very close attention.
Nicholas looks at me. Really looks — not the professional assessment, not the booth-to-bar glance. He looks at me the way he looked at the bar top on day five, when he ran his hand along the wood and saidwhoever built this knew what they were doing.Like he's trying to see the thing underneath the surface.
"I don't know yet," he says. "I need more data."
"That's very you."
"Is that a complaint?"
"It's an observation." I hold his gaze. The wall is cracking again — not because I'm letting it, but because the wall was never strong enough to hold against this. Against him, in his booth, looking at me like I might be someone he can trust with whatever he found. "If you need help with data, I'm — I do spreadsheets."
It's the wrong thing to say. Or the right thing. Or both. Because Nicholas's expression shifts — surprise, then warmth, then the careful recalculation of a man adding a new variable to an equation he thought he'd solved.
"I know you do spreadsheets," he says. "I've been watching you do spreadsheets for over a week."
"You've been watching me."
