Page 80 of Shadow Burn

Katherine had listened politely, then ignored the spirit of every instruction while technically following the letter.

Jasper admired that more than he cared to admit.

A federal evidence tech reached for one of Katherine’s handwritten logs, and Jasper saw her inhale through her nose.

“Carefully,” she said.

The tech paused. “Yes, ma’am.”

Katherine’s expression didn’t change. “That log cross-references the Cinder page, the flame watermark notation, and the cipher terminology. If you separate it from the chain without logging the connection, you’ll create a gap.”

The tech glanced at the senior agent, a gray-haired woman named Porter who had arrived from D.C. with a face that suggested she had once frightened committees for sport. She gave the slightest nod. “Log the connection.”

The tech obeyed.

Katherine relaxed by maybe one millimeter.

Jasper leaned against the edge of his desk, arms folded, and told himself not to interfere. This was her world. She’d earned the right to stand there and make everyone in the room do it correctly.

She’d also earned the right to leave.

That was the part he couldn’t get his head around.

Outside his office window, Blackridge sat beneath a washed-clean sky, the storm from the night of Cinder’s arrest long gone. Sunlight flashed on the pines beyond the compound fence. Garrett had reopened most of the perimeter that morning. Mack and CB were back from a meeting with Detective Mallory. Vivi was in the conference room with two federal attorneys, Reid, and enough coffee to keep a courtroom awake through jury instructions.

The compound had survived.

Katherine had survived.

Emma, her husband George, and the twins were safe. Garrett had put a protective detail on Katherine’s sister within twenty minutes of learning about the threat, and by the time Katherine woke the next morning, the family had already been moved to a secure hotel outside Richmond with the girls, two federal marshals, and one very confused golden retriever named Waffles. Emma had called Katherine crying, furious, and terrified in equal measure, which Jasper respected. Any sister worth having would lead with all three.

Cinder had been arrested under the name Nathan Soot.

The name had almost made Jasper shake his head when Mallory said it, because of course the bastard had chosen a joke only he understood. Nathan Soot. Cinder. Smoke and residue. A man who had lived for decades under false names, private contracts, and off-book orders.

The formal identification had come through after the FBI ran his prints against old sealed personnel records that someone in Washington had suddenly become very motivated to unseal. Nathan Soot had been buried in a defunct operations file tied to Walter Vance, Matthew Caldwell, and a restricted action channel no one wanted to admit had ever existed. Upton’s authorization code on the flame-marked original had changed that.

People could deny a memo. They could dispute a copy. They could smear a woman, attack a private security firm, misroute a flag, kill a paper trail, and call every ugly thing an administrative error.

But the original had survived. Katherine had made sure of it.

Jasper looked at her now, watching as she corrected another evidence tech’s handling of the sleeve containing the flame-marked page, and his chest tightened.

Nathan Soot was alive, though in federal custody and lawyered up so tightly he might as well have been sealed in laminate. He hadn’t admitted to being Cinder. He hadn’t admitted to working under Upton. He hadn’t admitted to killing anyone, including the missing courier Katherine had identified as her attacker.

Corrigan.

They finally had a name for him, too. Michael Corrigan, Agency security contractor with a history of clean assignments, sealed travel, and a suspiciously narrow digital footprint. Jasper had pulled him from the gate footage, the false retrieval order, and a buried contractor file Porter’s people had delivered. Corrigan had worked with Caldwell Strategic Risk on at least three records-transfer operations, and now he was gone.

Not arrested or hospitalized. He’d just disappeared.

His blood had been recovered near the quarry road where CB lost the SUV. The SUV itself had been found abandoned twenty miles outside Blackridge, wiped clean and burned from the inside out. Mallory suspected Corrigan had been executed for failing and disposed of somewhere between Blackridge and the state line. Cinder hadn’t admitted to anything, and Jasper doubted he would.

Men like Nathan Soot didn’t confess. They waited to see what the surviving paper would prove. Unfortunately for him, Katherine’s paper proved a hell of a lot.

Agent Porter closed the final evidence case and signed the seal. “Ms. Townsend.”

Katherine lifted her chin.