Henri leaned back slightly in his chair.
“You were prepared for the balcony,” he said.
“Yes.”
“But not for the stage.”
“No.”
He looked at the brace on my arm. “Then he was right,” Henri said.
“Who?”
“The one who reads rooms.”
Henri had spent months building a plan around the assumption that people trained like me would look outward first. He had not been wrong. The visible line of threat was clean.The gunshot at the house, altered baton, and shifted stage mark. Everything pointed toward perimeter and spectacle, most likely in the balcony. He built a decoy threat for me to follow while the real one, at stage level, hid behind it.
Henri looked at me. “You moved the podium when Micah was absent.”
“Yes.”
“Not far,” he said.
“Far enough.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“The shot was built for one position,” he said.
“Yes.”
“When the mark changed, he had to adjust.”
“Yes.”
Henri looked down at his folded hands again.
“And in the end, the hesitation gave you the opening.”
“In the end, watching both the balcony and the inner circle of the stage destroyed your plan.”
The door opened. The detective with the folder returned. I addressed him.
“The gunshot at the house was the opening move.”
He looked at me.
“It established the wrong threat model. A sniper. Distance. Balcony sightlines.”
He waited.
“Everything that followed reinforced that assumption. The baton replacement proved someone could reach Dominic personally. The stage mark moved him into a clean line from the balcony, and the flash device made everyone look up.”
I paused.
“While the actual weapon was already on the stage.”
The detective glanced down at his notes.
