“Be quiet.” She went back to the report, though a smile tugged at her mouth. She didn’t want it there. The morning had too much weight for smiling. But Sterling had inadvertently suggested she stay with him… longer.
And the idea didn't bother her at all.
She tapped the boxed names. “So, Koda’s name sits near people who were part of the corridor but managed to stay out of the official record.”
“Near,” Sterling said. “That’s the key word. Not tied. Not proven. Just near.”
“Near Shrike,” Nick said. "That's really the key."
Juniper’s fingers tightened around the highlighter. “It always comes back to them, now, doesn't it."
Nick nodded. “Koda moves in circles where Shrike could hide. That doesn’t make him Shrike. It doesn’t make him part of it. But when Mia overlays Koda’s post-corridor rebuilding contacts with Sterling's old Shrike-adjacent names, the same weather pattern keeps forming.”
She hated that. Hated the careful language. The hedging. The almost. The maybe. The same slippery smoke that had followed Shrike every time Mark had tried to grab hold of it.
Almost wasn’t evidence.
Maybe didn’t get warrants.
She set down the highlighter before she snapped it in half.
Sterling covered her hand with his, warm and steady. A week ago, she might have pulled away. A week ago, she’d still believed she could walk out of Calusa Cove if the job demanded it.
Now, the idea scraped raw places she had a name for but wasn't ready to say out loud.
“What else?” she asked.
Sterling removed his hand and reached for a separate folder.
This one had no corporate logos, no Mia-style flow lines, no neat digital printouts. It was thinner, and for some reason, that scared the shit out of her.
“I took a closer look at the Norfolk raid," Sterling said.
Her lungs locked for half a second. People always found softer ways to say it. The joint operation. The incident. She’dused those words herself because language gave people distance, and distance kept them upright.
But Mark had died there.
So had four other agents.
“What did you find?” Juniper asked.
Sterling opened the folder and turned the first page toward her.
The list of names didn’t punch through her the way it would have two years ago. That almost surprised her. Mark Stratton still hurt. His name always would. But her pain had edges now. It had a place and she knew she could carry it.
Progress. Or scar tissue. She wasn’t sure there was much difference.
Sterling tapped one name near the bottom of the list.
Logan Pike.
Juniper drew the folder closer. “He was one of the survivors.” She dragged it out of the old mess in her head. Hospital hallways. Officials in suits. Someone mentioning Pike had been lucky. Someone else saying lucky was a hell of a word for a man who’d taken six rounds and lived. “He was DEA. Mark didn't know him well.”
Nick leaned forward. "I went over that list after Mark died a dozen times. Pike never hit for me. Never came up on any list or flagged in any way.”
“That’s because you weren’t looking for the right overlap,” Sterling said.
She stared at him. "What does that mean?”
