Page 43 of Bear and Order

This isn't bookkeeping. This is a roadmap. A very illegal one.

My hand tightens around the book, and suddenly I don't care where it came from or why it's here or how long it's been sitting in storage. I care about one thing.

Calling Brock. Immediately.

Theo arrives first. Apparently curiosity allows him to travel faster than physics. The office door swings open and he appears — breathless, excited, already talking. "Please tell me somebody found something interesting because I abandoned lunch for this."

I hold up the ledger and he freezes, eyes widening. "That's a ledger."

"Good observation."

"I practice." The grin appears immediately, and then Brock walks in and Theo points dramatically. "She's being sarcastic. And this is just sitting in your junk, you must have swiped it from the original culprit, "

Brock barely glances at him. His attention settles on me, then the ledger. "What did you find?"

I hand it over. His expression changes after the first page, then the second, then the third — the shift is impossible to miss as investigator Brock takes over completely. Theo notices too and the joking disappears. The three of us gather around the table with the ledger open between us, pages turning, notes being written, names getting highlighted as connections begin appearing.

Theo suddenly sits upright. "There."

Brock looks immediately. "I see it."

I lean forward. "What?"

Theo points toward several entries. "Follow this." My eyes move across the page, then to another, then another, and the realization arrives slowly before hitting all at once. Money moves through one company, then another, then another — always returning somewhere else, always disappearing, always reappearing. The amounts grow larger and the patterns become clearer, and Theo whistles low and impressed and concerned, a combination I don't particularly enjoy.

"They were siphoning money," he says.

Brock nods, his attention never leaving the page. "Through tax returns."

Theo points again. "And lawsuits."

"Lawsuits?" I react.

"Fake ones." My stomach drops as the evidence continues unfolding — business after business appearing, some familiar and some not, the names forming a web stretching across multiple pages. Every new connection somehow makes everything worse. The ledger doesn't implicate one company. It implicates several.

The room grows quieter with every discovery. Eventually Theo leans back slowly, and the look on his face says more than words could. "Well." Nobody likes that word anymore. Brock closes the ledger carefully, as though the book might disappear if he moves too quickly. "We needed evidence."

Theo nods. "We found it."

I focus on the ledger and the reality still hasn't fully settled. For weeks we've been chasing fragments — rumors, complaints, missing paperwork, financial inconsistencies. Now everything sits in front of us, bound inside one leather cover. The feeling should be satisfying and instead it's overwhelming, because the implications keep growing with every page we've turned.

Theo rises from his chair. "I'm making copies." Brock looks up and Theo points toward the ledger. "Then digging deeper." His attention shifts toward me and a grin appears. "You accidentally became my favorite person today."

I snort. "That's concerning."

"It should be." He grabs his coat, then pauses, the grin widening. "You two try not to stare at each other while I'm gone."

Silence. Complete silence. Theo beams. "Excellent." Then he leaves, and the door closes behind him, and the quiet feels different afterward. Much different.

I read what we have, focusing on anything that isn't Brock. Unfortunately, Brock chooses that moment to speak.

"You did good."

The simple praise makes me twitch and I glance up. His gaze is steady, warm and sincere, and my stomach does something deeply unhelpful in response. "It was luck."

"No, it wasn't."

I laugh softly. "It was literally buried in junk."