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“Hey.” Her voice came through bright and sideways. “Okay, so I know it’s late, and you’re probably asleep, which, sorry, but I’ve been thinking about the key thing and it was bothering me and my cousin called about something else entirely and now I can’t let it go. Okay, so the alarm company. The one Gerry said he recut the key for? They closed their local office eight months ago. My cousin worked there. She got laid off when they consolidated to the regional center in Springfield. So like, there hasn’t been a local alarm guy for eight months. Which means either Gerry’s confused, which, hello, possible, or the key wasn’t for the alarm company at all, and I’m probably being weird about this, but you were asking about the backroom and the unlocked door and I just. Okay, so anyway. That’s it. That’s the thing. Sorry for calling so late. Bye.”

The call ended. Then the screen went dark.

I held the phone. The plastic was warm from my hand.

Not recently. Not vaguely. The alarm company had been gone for eight months. The key had been recut within the last few weeks.

Gerry had lied. Not a confusion. Not a mistake. A lie, delivered with the same genial deflection he used for everything hard.

The stillness that settled over me was different from the working-hands stillness. Colder. Quieter. It started in the center of my chest and radiated out until my fingers went numb on the sheet and my breath came in through my nose and out through my mouth in the controlled rhythm I used when something was coming apart and I needed not to show it.

Patch was already watching my face. I could feel it in the dark. The weight of his attention had shifted. From the warm aftermath of sex to something sharper. Alert.

“Tessa,” I said. “The backroom key was recut recently. Gerry said it was for the alarm company. The alarm company closed its local office eight months ago. My assistant’s cousin worked there. Got laid off in the consolidation.”

I paused. Let the numbers land.

“The backroom has been unlocked. Multiple times. Tessa found it open. Nothing missing. Nothing disturbed. Just. Open.” I made myself keep going. “The controlled cabinet is in there. The lock wants a thumb on the bottom edge and anybody who’s watched me open it three times could do it. Ketamine. Buprenorphine. Half a shelf of things with a schedule number on the label.”

I stopped.

“Nothing is ever missing. That’s the part I keep getting stuck on. If somebody were stealing from me, I’d have known in a week, because I count it twice a day and I’ve counted it twice a day for six years.”

I looked at him in the dark. Couldn’t see his expression. Could feel it change anyway. His hands had gone still on the sheet.

“Somebody has a key to my clinic. Somebody had that key cut, and Gerry told Tessa it was the alarm company, and Gerry knew that wasn’t true when he said it.” I made myself keep going. “I don’t know what that adds up to. You do. I can see you figuring it out right now.”

Patch’s hand found mine under the sheet. His fingers closed around my wrist. Not squeezing. Measuring. The way he measured a pulse. The way he counted respirations.

His breath came out slow. One long exhale. The kind a man released when a problem shifted from unknown to known and the known version was worse.

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

I understood what I’d just handed him. A problem he knew how to hold. A target. A timeline. A man who had taken money and lied about keys and put a veterinary technician in the path of something that got brothers shot on county roads. This was the club’s jurisdiction. This was the thing their tools were built for. Violence fixed some problems. Paperwork fixed none. This was not paperwork.

Not because anything was solved. Nothing was solved. I had a key, a door that kept opening, and a cabinet nobody was stealing from, and I still couldn’t tell you what any of it added up to.

But I’d said it out loud to somebody, and the somebody hadn’t told me I was tired or imagining it or making connections that weren’t there.

He’d gone quiet instead. And quiet, from that man, meant he was already working.

The relief was followed by something colder. The understanding that I had just stepped across a line. That handing Patch this problem meant handing him everything that came with it. The club handled things. Their way. Not the state’s way. Not the law’s way. Their way. Neat or messy. Thorough. Final.

I couldn’t take it back. The words were out. The facts were his. The problem had shifted ownership the moment I opened my mouth. Whatever happened next would happen because I had told him. Telling him had been a choice, and choices had consequences. The consequence of this one was that Gerry Kessler had stopped being my problem and become theirs. The log would still say what it said. Dana Whitlock would still count seven and find six and my initials would still be sitting there underneath. None of that had moved an inch.

What had moved was that a man I’d known six years was now a name in a room I’d never been in, being discussed by people who settle things in a language I don’t speak.

And I was the one who’d said the name.

His thumb moved on my wrist. One stroke. Down, then up. The gesture was so gentle it hurt.

“Get some sleep,” he said.

I nodded in the dark. Didn’t know if he saw it. Didn’t matter. The line under the door held steady. The compound slept around us. Or didn’t sleep. The sound of a place gearing up for something it had done a thousand times before.

I closed my eyes. His hand stayed on my wrist.

Chapter Nine