"Your timeline was right," I said.
Juliette didn't lower her chin. She set the pen down on the mahogany counter, the sound sharp in the quiet room. "The note was clear enough?"
"The photographer had to be inside before the gate opened," I said. “We found where they cut the Acacia back. They used staff access to reset the log on the generator housing. Not an outside hack. A credential.”
"And the eastern breach?"
"A diversion to pull the vehicles away from the utility roof while they retrieved the device," I said. “You caught what they left in the frame.”
"I used to study evidence for a living, Nick."
She stood there, pale and composed, quietly holding together the people I had not had hands left to care for. I had put a guard on her and left her in the library. She had turned lockdown into command.
She wasn't the breach.
"The truck leaves at eleven," I said. My voice was too loud for the distance between us. "You're on the manifest."
"I know," she said. She reached out, her fingers touching the corner of her phone where it sat on the desk. She didn't look back up at me. "The luggage is already in the staging area."
The distance between us was exactly two feet of slate tile. It felt like a cliff. The small pulse in the side of her neck beat rapid and shallow, the only part of her not under absolute control.
I had faced men with rifles, high-tensile wire, and enough desperation to make them lethal in the dark. None of it had hit with the weight of that stillness.
"Nick," Daniel's voice came through the radio, breaking the quiet before I could find a word that didn't sound like a confession. "We have a problem with the server logs from thirteen hundred yesterday."
I didn't take my eyes off her. "Report."
"The credential that opened the utility roof gate," Daniel said, his voice dropping into the speaker mesh. "It wasn't an old staff ID. It was active. It logged into the secondary terminal five minutes ago."
Juliette’s gaze snapped up to mine.
Behind my back, the latch on the screen door clicked.
Chapter 29
Six-Thirty
JULIETTE
Thelodgehadenteredthe clipboard phase of crisis.
I sat in the library, the air tasting of leftover ginger biscuits and tannins gone bitter. Outside the door, the lodge was a machine resetting itself. From the reception alcove came the faint, uneven clack-clack of Sarah’s keyboard, followed by the occasional heavy tread of a ranger on the porch.
The guest transfer list sat on the table in front of me. Yesterday’s eleven o’clock transfer had died with the active credential, the locked-down lodge, and the screen door clicking behind Nick’s back.
The click had been Daniel, not the man with the stolen credential, but the damage had been done. The active login hadtriggered another lockdown, another sweep, and another round of transfers collapsing into polite apologies.
Now my name waited at the top of the next morning’s list.
The roads were technically clear, but no one seemed eager to trust them yet. My luggage was staged by the service elevator, glossy and black against a room built for dust, boots, and bad news, packed with everything except a clean way out.
“First transfer leaves at six-thirty,” Sarah said from the doorway. She had abandoned her shoes at some point, one hip braced against the frame like standing upright had become a group decision. "Nick wants daylight. Two vehicles per group, escort front and rear."
“Of course he does.” The last word scraped on the way out.
Only Nick Mercer could dress avoidance up and make it sound like procedure.
Sarah didn't smile. She just leaned against the doorframe, looking at the untouched cup of tea beside my hand. "He’s still with the rangers. Mbeki’s back from the clinic. Eight stitches and a lot of swearing, but he’s upright."
