Page 11 of Faultline

I set her up with housing assistance and legal referrals when she came through Aurora Covenant's intake earlier this year. She was shaking so hard during the first meeting that she couldn't hold the pen to sign her own paperwork. By the third meeting she was steady. By the fifth she was angry, which is the stage I trust most because anger means the survival instinct has found its spine.

She's telling me she's fine, and the word sits in my ear like a stone in a shoe.

"Jeanine, has anyone contacted you about a job opportunity? A relocation offer, anything like that?"

Silence. The kind that means someone is deciding how much to say.

"There was a woman," Jeanine says. "Last week. Professional-looking. She came to the apartment with a folder and talked about a job placement program in Anchorage. Housing assistance, childcare, the whole package. She had a business card."

"Do you still have it?"

"I think so. Hold on." I hear a drawer open, a child's voice in the background, then paper rustling. "Cascade something. Cascade Resource Group. The woman's name was Denise Stahl."

I write it down. Cascade Resource Group. Not Cascade Mineral Partners, but close enough to notice.

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her I'd think about it. She said the spots were limited and she'd need to hear back by the end of the week. Tosh, she knew my name. She knew I had kids. She knew about the restraining order." Jeanine's voice tightens. "How does a corporate recruiter know about a restraining order?"

That question lands exactly where it should. Protective orders are public record, technically accessible to anyone who knows where to search. But a corporate recruiter offering job placement, has no legitimate reason to be pulling court filings on the women she's recruiting. Unless the point isn't placement. Unless the point is finding the ones with the least stability, the fewest connections, the most reasons to say yes to a fresh start that sounds too clean to question.

"Don't call her back," I say. "Don't take any meetings. If she shows up again, tell her you're not interested and call me immediately."

"Is something wrong?"

Everything is wrong. Two of my clients are unreachable after accepting identical offers. A third just described the same playbook, refined with enough personal detail to suggest access to records that should be confidential. The pattern isn't thin anymore. It's a system.

"I'm looking into the company," I tell her. "I'll know more soon. Just hold tight and keep my number close."

After Jeanine, I call more. The first mentions that someone stopped by her apartment asking about job opportunities, and my pulse spikes until she explains it was her neighbor's sister looking for warehouse work. Small-town word of mouth, not corporate recruitment. I spend fifteen minutes confirming, chasing the thread until I'm certain it leads nowhere. The frustration of a pattern that isn't there tastes exactly like the frustration of a pattern that is. Learning to tell the difference is the reason this work ages you in dog years.

Some of the women haven't been contacted by anyone matching the Cascade profile. A woman in a community north of here received a phone call last week from a recruiter at Cascade Resource The same group offering employment in Fairbanks. She turned it down because she just started a job she likes. The recruiter called back the next day and offered more money. She said no again. The recruiter hasn't called since.

The last woman I called has a disconnected number. Maryanne Sobol. I connected her with a part-time position at a supply warehouse outside town after she relocated from Fairbanks with Aurora Covenant support. Early forties, a domestic violence survivor, the kind of steady that comes from rebuilding everything from scratch and knowing exactly what it cost.

My last contact with her was a couple of weeks ago. She sounded solid. Mentioned she was thinking about adopting a dog. Her phone plays the three-tone sequence and a recorded voice tells me the number is no longer in service.

I set the phone down and press my palms flat on the desk. Women who were once easily reachable aren’t any longer. And some of them who were contacted declined.

All of them connected to Aurora Covenant. All of them approached within the same window by recruiters working under a name that sounds like a mineral company's community outreach division.

The morning light through my office window is flat and gray. The packing-tape logo on the glass casts a faint backward shadow across the intake forms stacked on the desk nearest the door.

I should eat something. Coffee at six, nothing since, and my hands are doing the faint tremor they do when I've been running on caffeine and cortisol for too long.

I eat a granola bar from the box I keep in the bottom drawer and chase it with cold water from the thermos I brought with me. Then I pull Della Pruitt's housing file and start tracking her lease.

Della's landlord is a retired electrician named Glenn Halverson who owns a handful of rental units on the east side of the highway. He answers on the first try and tells me Della gave notice a few weeks ago. Paid her last month. Left the unit clean.

"Did she say where she was going?" I ask.

"Anchorage. Said she had a new job lined up. Seemed happy about it." He pauses. "I've got a box of kitchen stuff she left behind. Was going to donate it if nobody came for it."

"Did anyone contact you about buying the property after she left?"

The silence on the other end changes texture. "Matter of fact, yeah. Got a letter last week from some real estate company. Handwritten note on the front, personal touch, offering to buy all four units at a price that made me read it twice. Company name was something corporate. Cascade-something."

I thank him and end the call. Then I sit at my desk and let the shape of it settle. Della's gone. The landlord got a purchase offer. Same Cascade name at both ends of the transaction.