Page 59 of Bear and Order

I look around the bakery — at the closure notice still resting beside the register, at the empty display case, at the chairs no one has sat in — and find that the sight doesn't crush me the way it did this morning. The evidence is growing. The truth is getting closer. The people responsible are making mistakes and leaving gaps, and now Helena Graves is hunting through the maze with that sharp, delighted focus.

Hope returns quietly, without announcement. Not loudly, not dramatically — just enough. A small, stubborn thing settling back into its place.

Sometimes that is all a person needs to keep going.

26

BROCK

Itell myself I'm watching the bakery because of the investigation. The lie lasts approximately three seconds.

My truck is parked across the street from Sweetbell Bakery, and Juniper moves behind the display counter arranging pastries. A customer enters. She smiles. The customer smiles back. The sight settles something inside me — the bakery is still standing. Barely, but standing.

My phone rings. Helena. I answer immediately.

"What happened?"

Her laugh drifts through the speaker. "Good morning to you too."

"You don't call unless you've found something."

"Fair." Paper shuffles on the other end. "I found something."

I sit up straighter. "How good?"

A brief pause follows, then she says, "Stop staring at your baker and come to my hotel."

The line goes dead. I shift my focus to the phone, then toward the bakery, and Juniper catches me watching. She waves. I immediately look away — a terrible tactical decision, because when I glance back, she's laughing.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Helena has occupied an entire table in the hotel lounge. Files cover every available surface — financial statements, bank records, copies of ledgers, corporate filings. The sight immediately improves my mood. Evidence usually does.

She doesn't look up when I arrive, circling something on a document, then another. Finally she gestures toward the chair opposite her. "Sit."

I do. Helena slides several papers toward me. "I found major flaws."

That isn't what I expected. I look up. "What?"

"In this case." Her finger moves to a collection of account transfers. "The transport companies." Then another page. "The fraudulent tax returns." Then another. "The fake lawsuits."

I follow the paper trail. The transactions move through different businesses, different accounts, different entities, and at first glance everything appears unrelated — a deliberate sprawl designed to overwhelm anyone looking too closely. Then Helena taps one line, once, firmly.

"Look harder."

I do. The realization arrives slowly, then all at once. The accounts are different. The routing isn't. Every payment, every transfer, every withdrawal — everything eventually leads to the same offshore account.

I look through the page. "No."

Helena smiles. "Oh yes."

"How did nobody catch this?"

She leans back. "Because whoever built it was smart." Another page lands in my gaze. "They spread everything out — different businesses, different shell companies, different tax filings." I continue reading, and the deeper I go, the worse it becomes. The thing is vast and deliberate, constructed by someone who understood exactly how investigators think and built the maze accordingly.

"This is enormous," I say.

Helena nods. "Now you're catching up."