Page 54 of Shadow Burn

He let the moment breathe because she’d made a joke, and they both needed it. “Come see what I have.”

She followed him into the room, where Vivi had left the second mug of tea beside his keyboard. Katherine’s attention went to the monitors, moving from the sedan image to the Caldwell file to the contract data now filling the right screen.

“Legacy Shield,” she read aloud.

“Vivi’s contacts gave it to her. Upton chaired or advised on classified review boards tied to the program. Caldwell’s firm worked a support contract connected to it.”

Katherine shifted Priss to her other arm and stepped closer. “Legacy review, archival transfer, historical risk mitigation. Those are containment terms.”

“Yeah. Vivi said one of her contacts described Upton as the man they send in when the past becomes inconvenient.”

Katherine’s gaze swung to him. “That’s exactly what my dissertation was about.”

“I know.”

“And what they used against my Cinder flag.”

“Looks like it.”

Her brow furrowed. “If Upton’s tied to Legacy Shield and Caldwell’s firm supported that program, then Caldwell may not be a retired anomaly in Vance’s papers. He may be part of the mechanism.”

“My theory, too.”

“He was supposedly out of operational work by 1995, but Vance’s memo had him handling a secondary asset interview.”

“Which means the official file is wrong or intentionally misleading.”

“Administrative encryption.”

“Your favorite.”

She gave him a look. “It’s not my favorite.”

“You light up when the paper trail gets ugly.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“You do.” He turned back to the screen before she could argue and slid the tea toward her. “I’ve been running Caldwell’s firm through old contract archives. Most of the site is public, and their current employees look clean. I can’t know if someone was removed from the website unless I compare archived versions or scrape old cached pages, which I’m doing now, but that won’t be fast.”

“Could my intruder work for Caldwell?”

“Or Caldwell’s firm could’ve provided the kind of support that gave someone access to old records, old vehicle pools, and old identities.”

She went quiet. “Old vehicle pools.”

Jasper clicked to the plate window. “The sedan’s plate doesn’t match any active federal vehicle. But the format is right. I’m digging through decommissioned asset records.”

“Would those records show who drove the car?”

“Not usually at the individual-driver level, not after decommissioning. Fleet records might show agency assignment, pool location, maintenance history, or disposal chain. If I’m lucky, I can find a vehicle identification number tied to the plate, and then maybe an asset custody trail.”

“Could Vance have driven it?”

The question was so Katherine that he could have kissed her for it. “Maybe,” he said. “It would depend on the date. If the vehicle was active during Vance’s last assignments or retirement transition, it could have been assigned to a pool he used. If it came later, then no.”

Her eyes stayed on the screen. “Vance retired and settled in Blackridge. What if the car was attached to a records transfer or protective detail when his papers were moved here?”

“That’s plausible.”