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I should put it back.
Instead, he pulled out another sheet covered in Jodie’s neat handwriting and turned it over.
Colin’s name had been moved from one job to another. Andrew’s shift started two hours later than originally planned. Someone had written CLIENT CANCELED across Charlie’s Saturday detail.
Nothing interesting.
See? Old paperwork. Grab the maps and give them to Jodie and Willow.
Mac slid the old assignment sheet behind the maps.
Then started going through the rest of the scratch paper. Why, he couldn’t have said. Curiosity, mostly.
Which was a lousy excuse for going through Jodie’s paperwork.
Enough, Woodward. This isn’t Watergate.
Then he saw the top of another schedule farther down in the pocket.
MACALLISTER.
Mac hesitated.
Well, in for a penny…
Not exactly a compelling moral defense.
He pulled it out.
July.
His name was on an afternoon exterior detail and crossed out with a neat, straight line. Charlie had taken the assignment. Mac had been moved to her early-morning airport pickup and morning detail instead. He remembered that one, too. Jodie had told him the principal’s flight time had changed and Charlie couldn’t make it, so she switched them.
His stomach tightened.
Stop it. Totally plausible. Happens all the time.
Mac flipped to the next page.
No Mac.
The next one either.
Colin. Shane. Andrew. Charlie. Normal changes, normal scheduling noise.
He started to feel like an asshole.
Put them back.
Then he saw his name again. Another outdoor assignment during a heat advisory. Crossed out. Someone else in his place.
Three times.
Mac stared at the pages spread across the table. A strange warmth moved through him first, completely at odds with the knot forming under his ribs.
She noticed.
Of course she had. Jodie had noticed him before he’d ever believed she knew he existed beyond Mac at Watchdog. She’d noticed that he trained early. She’d noticed the heat on the mountain while he carried her down. She’d noticed enough to worry about Sand Wash before he ever volunteered to come.
