The door clicks shut.
It's just the three of us.
I should stand up, but I don't move.
Neither does Arden.
I look at him.
Really look, for the first time since I walked in. He's been keeping his eyes carefully elsewhere the entire meeting. Professional. Contained. Doing his job with the precision of a man who has learned to do his job very well when everything else is complicated.
Now he looks back.
His expression is steady. But I know this man. I know the tired thing living at the edges of his eyes and I know what I put there.
The thing between us that hasn't been resolved sits in the room like a third presence.
Neither of us speaks.
Chase clears his throat. "You two need to talk."
"Not here," Arden says.
"Not now," I say.
Arden stands. Gathers his jacket and his bag with the measured movements of someone who is being very careful not to hurry. He pauses at the door then looks back at me.
"You did what you had to do," he says. "For what it's worth."
Then he's gone.
I sit in the silence.
Chase watches me from across the desk, letting me have a minute. He's good at that. Knowing when to push and when to just let it sit.
"The hearing is coming," he says finally. "Be ready."
I nod before standing and moving toward the door.
"Jasper."
I stop.
"What you did in that house wasn't nothing," he says. "The reports. The recordings. Months of walking that line every single day." He holds my gaze. "That's what's going to get her out. That's what's going to matter in that room."
I don't respond.
Because he's right.
I know he's right.
And it still doesn't reach the part of me that stood at that door and turned around. The part that sat in a room for days and told itself it was doing the right thing while she was alone a few feet away going through something she should never have had to go through alone.
I leave.
The hallway is empty. Arden is already gone.
My phone buzzes.
