Gerald.Mason had stopped offering to call Reeves' secondary line.That was the first thing I noticed about the morning — not Reeves' continued silence, not Adrian's absence, just the small adjustment in Mason's behavior that told me he'd read the room correctly without being told to. He set the coffee down. He didn't ask if I needed anything else. He left.I'd trained good staff. That was one thing the last twenty years had given me cleanly, without complication.I looked at my phone.I'd called Adrian four times since yesterday afternoon. Four rings, each time, then voicemail, then nothing — no callback, no text, no acknowledgment that the calls had registered at all. I knew the gesture. I'd used it myself, on Reeves, twice now, in the last two days. There was a specific cruelty in recognizing your own move being run against you, a cruelty sharper than if Adrian had simply screamed at me and hung up.He'd learned that from me.I sat with that for longer than I wanted to.The thing
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