Page 27 of No Good Fight

My chest tightened.

Local.

I stepped out into the apparatus bay with my phone in my hand and called him back.

“Name?” I asked.

“Can’t give you that.”

“Remy.”

“I said I found possibilities. I didn’t say I was handing you private information because you’ve got a bad feeling and hero eyes.”

“It’s more than a bad feeling.”

“Then make it official.”

I looked across the bay at the engine, at the neat coil of hose, at the tools locked in place where they belonged. Everything here had a procedure. Every emergency had a chain of command, even when the scene went sideways.

Alex did not fit into a procedure.

If I called Josh, he’d storm in. If I called the cops, Alex would have to explain things she wasn’t ready to say out loud. If I dragged everyone into it too soon, I’d lose the ability to move quietly, and some part of me hated that most of all.

I didn’t trust anyone else to get to her fast enough.

The realization landed cold and ugly.

Not because it surprised me.

Because it didn’t.

“Send me what you can without getting fired,” I said.

Remy was quiet for a beat. “You’re walking close to a line that you can’t walk back from once you cross it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He hung up before I could lie.

The rest of the afternoon moved around me without touching me. Calls came through. Men talked. Someone burned coffee in the kitchen badly enough that the whole common room smelled like old grounds and punishment. I drank a cup anyway and stared at my notebook while the words on the page became less like notes and more like a map of every way I had failed to put the pattern together.

Alex posted on the local site at 3:17.

A short update about the redevelopment story. Two sentences about old buildings, ignored repairs, and residents worried they’d be priced out before anyone bothered fixing the wiring.

The notification appeared on my lock screen before I thought to wonder why I had notifications turned on for her articles.

I tapped it.

Read it.

Read it again.

She’d been downtown for that story. Publicly downtown. Anyone watching her feed would know what she was working on, where she might be asking questions, which businesses she’d been near. It wasn’t a live location, but it was close enough for a man who already knew her patterns.

I set the phone face down in an attempt to keep my mind off her and what she could be doing.