Page 82 of The Grumpy Defenseman
Packaged.
Placed.
Ready to become public property.
The exact thing I had feared the instant I saw the frame.
I touched the edge of the tablet with one finger, like maybe if I grounded myself physically, my mind would stop trying to leave my body and hide in the ceiling tiles.
“What’s the timeline?”
“Walsh wants a yes by the end of the day.” Sandra hesitated. “Silas is trying to slow him down.”
That helped.
Marginally.
Silas was trying to slow something down, which meant the brakes existed, even if they were already smoking.
“And Evan?”
Sandra was quiet for half a beat too long.
“He hasn’t seen it yet.”
That was worse.
Not the campaign logic or the legal language. Just the simple fact that he had let me see him, and now that seeing had become convertible.
Case flickered at the edges of it. Not literally, but in the way private truth could flatten fast once other hands got on it.
I stepped back from the tablet.
“I need to fix it.”
Sandra’s expression changed then. Not dramatically. Just enough for me to see the person under the job title.
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I came to you before I went back upstairs.”
I looked at her.
“You did?”
She folded her arms. “Sam. I work in communications, not necromancy. I know a haunted image when I see one.”
Despite myself, I barked out a laugh.
“That may be the least comforting sentence anyone has ever said to me.”
“It wasn’t meant to be comforting.” She glanced at the tablet. “It was meant to be useful.”
Right.
Useful.
I forced myself to think in sequence.
Walsh wanted the frame.
