LOGIN[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis was already moving."Stay here," he said to Yessica — not a request — and crossed the hallway in four steps, positioning himself between the staircase and the front door.McAllister was still on the line. He heard her issuing instructions before the door fully opened.The woman who stepped inside was not what he expected. Mid-forties, slight, wearing a rain jacket and carrying nothing in her hands. She stopped the moment she saw him.Her face did something complicated. Not aggression. Not the cool calculation of someone executing a plan. Something closer to a person who had driven to a destination and arrived only to understand, too late, that they'd made a terrible mistake."Mr. Sterling," she said."Put your hands where I can see them."She raised both hands immediately. "I'm not armed. I'm not here to do anything." Her voice shook slightly. "I just — I needed to see you in person. I needed you to know that I've been trying to get out of th
[POV: Yessica] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis called McAllister before Yessica had finished reading the message twice."Another number," he said when she answered. "Same pattern, different sender. Forward incoming now."He took Yessica's phone and sent the screenshot while McAllister was still on the line. The call lasted four minutes. When it ended, he set both phones on the table and looked at Yessica with the specific expression she'd learned to read as controlled alarm — the version where the alarm was real but the control was a decision, not a reflex."She's sending a unit," he said. "She wants you to reply.""Reply.""With a message she'll draft. Keep them talking long enough to trace the number." He paused. "She says it's your call. You don't have to."Yessica thought about it for approximately three seconds."Tell her to send the draft."McAllister's text arrived in two minutes. Simple, direct, designed to sound like genuine fear rather than a tactical response. Yessica read it
[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)The missing page meant someone with access to the evidence chain had protected Catherine's connection to Victoria Brennan.Lewis sat with that for the length of time it took Eleanor to finish explaining the implications. Not long. Eleanor was concise when things were serious."The chain of custody runs from Harrison, who provided the address book, to the prosecution solicitor who catalogued it, to the court archive." She was in her office; he could hear papers moving. "The discrepancy was discovered because Harrison's handwritten inventory — he listed the contents when he handed it over — references the Brennan entries. The copy submitted to court is missing that page. The gap occurs somewhere between Harrison's handoff and the archive submission.""Who had access in that window?""Two people. The prosecution solicitor and his junior associate." A pause. "I've already pulled the associate's background. Nothing flagged immediately. The solicitor him
[POV: Yessica] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis repeated what McAllister had said.Yessica sat with it for a moment."She's in federal prison," she said. "They restrict outgoing communications. Phone calls are monitored, mail is screened, visits are logged.""They restrict them. They don't make them impossible." Lewis set his phone on the counter. "Catherine has had seventeen months inside to understand exactly what the monitoring looks like and how to work around the edges of it.""Victoria Brennan wouldn't be on Catherine's approved visitor list.""She doesn't have to be. Approved visitors can pass messages. A letter sent to a solicitor, forwarded through a personal contact, arriving without Catherine's return address." He sat down. "We built our entire fraud case on the principle that Catherine is methodical and works through intermediaries. This is the same pattern."Yessica thought about that notebook. Dates and times and Yessica's running route written in someone else's handwriting
[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis was out the front door before anyone could say anything.Yessica was two steps behind him. He heard Eleanor saying something sharp from the hallway but he was already across the front garden, through the gate, on the pavement.Victoria Brennan didn't run. She didn't move at all. She stood under the lamppost holding the photograph with both hands and watched him come toward her with an expression he couldn't immediately classify — not fear, not aggression. Something more unsettling than either.He stopped four feet away."That's my daughter," he said."I know." Her voice was calm. "I took it at her school three weeks ago. She was in the yard during afternoon break. She was teaching another girl how to do a cartwheel.""You took a photograph of my child at her school.""I take photographs of families." She said it simply, as though it required no further explanation. "Beautiful families. Intact ones that stay together despite everything." She l
[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)Eleanor read the message without touching the phone."Don't reply," she said immediately. "Don't call back. Forward it to McAllister right now with a full screenshot including the timestamp."Lewis did it while Eleanor was still speaking."Unknown Edinburgh number," Yessica said. "It could be Sienna.""It's not Sienna." Lewis forwarded the screenshot and set the phone on the table. "She's on probation and being reviewed. She wouldn't send an anonymous text to the person she's trying to prove good faith to. That's the opposite of what she's doing.""Then who?"Nobody answered that.Eleanor looked at the message again. Not at the school. Closer."Someone who knows about Sandra Keane," Eleanor said. "Which means someone who either is part of Catherine's network or is adjacent to it and aware of its structure." She looked at Lewis. "How many people know about your investigation into Sandra?""You. Yessica. McAllister. The investigator.""No one else?"
[POV: Yessica] (Location: Edinburgh)"Sandra Keane," Yessica said.A beat of silence from Lewis on the phone."The administrative coordinator," she continued. "She's been there since before Ethan started. She sends the parent communications, manages the pickup lists, handles enrollment paperwork.
[POV: Yessica] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis read Eleanor's message twice. Then he handed his phone to Yessica without comment.She read it. Handed it back."She thinks you owe her," Yessica said."She thinks she's earned something. There's a difference." He put the phone in his pocket. "She has in
[POV: Yessica] (Location: Edinburgh)The test was positive.Two lines, unmistakable, the kind of result you couldn't talk yourself into misreading no matter how much you wanted to try.Lewis stood in the doorway looking at it for a long moment without speaking."I have an IUD," Yessica said. It c
[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)The name sat on Eleanor's phone screen for a long moment before anyone said anything.David Harper.Lewis looked at Sienna. "Did you know?""No." She said it without hesitation. "I knew Catherine had three witnesses. I knew Patricia was one. I didn't know Harper







