Juliette Wilder hadn't mentioned it once.
I flipped the next page. A photo had been clipped to the inside. Not a professional headshot. An unposed shot, cropped from a larger image.
Sun on her face. Hair pulled back.
The smile looked accidental.
It didn't match the version in my head.
Neither did the woman who walked into the lodge this afternoon. She'd crossed the threshold with that blazer folded over her arm like it was an inconvenience, not armor. Sunglasses on, chin lifted, shoulders square. A stance I recognized.
Not a tourist. Someone who watched a room before stepping into it.
The kind of person who walked into a room expecting it to fight back.
I'd watched her hands first. Habit. People lied with their mouths. They told the truth with their hands.
Phone. Pen. The click of it. Twice. Then the way she caught herself, the motion stopping like a door locked from the inside.
She'd looked at me like she was cataloging risk.
Most guests treated me like a prop.
She looked at me like I might be a problem.
I should have disliked her.
Instead, the first fucking thing I felt was something close to respect.
That irritated me more than it should have.
I turned another page.
Health notes. Dietary preferences. Running. Fitness oriented.
A single line caught my eye.
Self-defense training following a high-risk case.
Not details. No narrative. Just the fact.
My forearm flexed against the chair. The scar there tugged tight as old rope. Kandahar. Mortar fragment across the forearm.
The file was supposed to be practical. Bullet points and logistics. Who needed extra medication. Who might panic. Who would wander.
But that line about self-defense made her sharper in my head.
Not fragile.
Not naive.
Not the type to squeal over a hyena in lantern light.
And yet.
At dinner tonight, she'd been sitting with a table full of people who liked to hear themselves speak. I knew their type. They talked about control like it was a virtue. They used words likeintentional and bandwidth and recalibration as if language could tidy their insides.
Juliette had watched the perimeter.
