"Come on, Kimmy. The timing is so—so perfect."
"Maybe… But I really don't know."
"You don't sound happy," Brynn said, softer now. "I thought you'd be doing a cartwheel."
"I can't figure out what I feel," I admitted. It came out as a broken whisper.
She didn't say anything for a few seconds. "Want to hang out later? I can bring pastries. Or, like, murder donuts. Do you want murder donuts?"
"Maybe," I said again, uselessly.
"Okaaaay," she drawled. "But you have to promise to tell me everything that you saw when you were there. Otherwise, I'll camp outside your apartment and serenade you until you die of embarrassment."
"Yeah," I said, barely managing a laugh. "Deal."
"Cool. I'll text you later," Brynn said, and ended the call.
I lay back and let my hand fall to my chest, the phone balanced there. I stared at the ceiling, my mind still fogged by sleep but racing in a dozen directions at once. I thought about the night before, about the flash of Ronan's eyes in the corridor, the press of his fingers on my jaw, the perfectly timed interruption by the strange man with the cart. He looked like a waiter but his boots said something different.
They were tactical style boots.
By nine I was at my kitchen counter, on my second cup of coffee, laptop open like a jaw with too many teeth.
The headlines scrolled by, one after the next. I read them aloud, as if I spoke them they'd become real. But they were already real.
Prominent Businessman Ronan Wick Arrested on Fraud Allegations
Financial Fraud Suspect Ronan Wick Remains in Custody
Ronan Wick Denies Involvement in Financial Fraud Case
I said each one again, softer, quieter, until it was just the hiss of breath in my mouth. The words looked fake after a while, like an elaborate prank. But every link led to another article or a meme or a stock image of Ronan in a suit, hands up in that ridiculousno commentpose. The smugness was gone from his eyes, replaced by the blankness of a man about to go under.
A text message from Margaret arrived—Katrina's birthday dinner reminder.
I reacted to it with a thumb-ups sticker and went back to my gloating over Ronan Wick's disaster.
A strange, fluttering satisfaction ran through me as I kept on reading. The monster in the dark had been dragged into the light. His name would be poison now, his family's reputation ruined.
But the thrill died on the way down. What filled the space was something bitter and electric. Guilt, maybe. Or fear of what I'd become.
Margaret would hate me for feeling victorious over someone's downfall.
I tried to shake the thought off and stared around my apartment, looking for things to count.
The space around me was a monument to my need for control. No clutter, nothing out of place, nothing to trip over or betray me. Even the morning sun filtered in at a rigid angle, bending itself to the lines of my furniture.
My stomach felt lined with lead. Still, I sipped my coffee and munched on my second ChocoNut even though it was too early for sugar.
I should've been moving on—checking work emails, prepping for calls, figuring out how to fix my broken sleep schedule—but I couldn't stop scrolling. I needed to see if anyone else was named, if the case was expanding, if there would be any blowback for me.
I closed the laptop for a while and paced the living room, but the apartment felt too quiet and every sound was magnified. My mind spun and the memories of last night rushed back in—one in particular.
The waiter in tactical boots who nodded at me. Now that I thought about it some more… The same boots were on the man on the bike outside in the street when I was getting into the Uber. The man who openly looked at me.
I chalked it up to a coincidence but deep in my gut I knew it wasn't.
Work was a joke.
