Page 21 of Angel’s Doll

“Why don’t you give me another day to see what I can dig up?” Glitch says. “Maybe I’ll find something that will help me figure out where the family stands.”

“Right, and in the meantime we assume the worst and we do nothing that depends on strangers being decent. Gate rotation doubles. Nobody rides alone. Prospects on the roof, not the door. The women don’t leave the fence, and that includes yours, Angel,” Bishop decides.

“Agreed,” I say.

He smiles. I think he had another forty seconds of argument loaded.

He recovers fast. “One day, Glitch. Then we vote it. Cash, if the day shows we can reach out, what do we send to the Quinlans?”

“Three things.” Cash has the answer ready. “The guardianship petitions, one chart tying Ian’s shells to Brightmoor, and the Brightmoor intake list with the coastal parcels next to the names. A smart man reads that and understands his cousin took the family’s clean money swimming in a sewer. Nothing about the easements. Nothing about Friday. Nothing about us.”

“And nothing about her,” I say.

“Can’t promise that one.” Cash turns the laptop a few degrees, like he’s inviting Glitch into it. “She ran Victor’s rooms and calls for four years. She’s the one living person who can put Ian in that office before Brightmoor opened its doors. The shells prove the money. She proves the timeline. If it comes to a sit-down with the brothers, she’s the best piece of evidence we own.”

There it is.

I keep my hands flat, and it costs me. Monday night she sat across a table from us and gave us the truth with Victor’s fingerprints wiped off the parts he never touched. Ten years of reasons to bury the man, and she wouldn’t bend one fact to do it. I can’t admire that and then let this table do to her what Victor did, move the girl where the girl is useful.

“We don’t own her,” I say. “She’s not evidence, she’s not collateral, and she’s not a package this club delivers to close a deal. Victor priced her. Ian priced her.”

“Nobody’s pricing her,” Cash says.

“Then call it what it is. She’s a witness. If a day comes when her word in front of the Quinlans buys us the meeting, somebody asks her, she says yes or no, and no is a full sentence.”

Smoke looks at me a long moment. He’s the SAA. His job is the worst version of everything, and he’s been waiting all morning to find out which version of me showed up.

“Witness works,” he says, and sits down.

“Witness it is.” Bishop picks up the gavel. “Read it back.”

“Glitch digs one more day,” Cash says. “We harden the fence and assume the worst. If the family reads clean, we send three pages and ask for an hour. Nothing goes out with her name on it unless she puts it there herself.”

“Proof before bullets.” The gavel comes down. “But we load first.”

Chairs scrape. Compass is out the door without a word, Smoke behind him, already talking rotations. I stay in my chair one extra minute while the table clears.

It’s the smart plan. It’s the plan I’d make with a clear head, and Bishop made it with a clearer one, and every hour it buys is an hour Ian Durey keeps breathing. I can live with that. Barely.

Her door is open, which is new.

She’s cross-legged on the bed with the cookbook in her lap, and she looks up before I knock.

“That was fast for a war council.”

“Wasn’t a war council. Not yet.” I stay in the doorway. Her room, her ground. “You get the short version whether you want it or not, this also concerns your life and you weren’t in the room. That doesn’t sit right with me, so here it is.”

She closes the cookbook on her thumb.

“Glitch gets one more day to work out whether the Quinlan brothers knew what their money was doing. Until then the fence gets taller. Nobody leaves, you included. If the family reads clean, we send them proof their cousin dirtied their investment and ask for a meeting. If they read dirty, we’re in a different conversation.”

“And me?”

“You’re the timeline. Cash thinks a day may come when your word in front of the brothers is worth more than his paper.” I give it to her whole, nothing sanded off, same as she gave us Victor. “If that day comes, somebody will ask you. Ask, Doll. Nobody hands you anywhere. I made sure of that.”

She’s quiet a moment. Her hand comes up and finds her mother’s ring that was hiding under her shirt, and I’d bet she doesn’t know she’s doing it yet.

I push off the doorframe. “Come eat something with us at noon. Phoenix will have a plate with your name on it and a bat for anyone between you and the kitchen.”