Taren called at four.
She was at her desk when the phone rang — not the text line he usually used, her actual number, which meant he needed to talk rather than send. She picked up.
"He called me in this morning," Taren said.
She set down her pen. "Tell me."
"His office. Nine o'clock. He had everything out." A pause. "Everything. The registration documents. The event attendance logs. The due diligence report. Photos from the Vault directory and from sources I didn't recognize immediately, which means he's been pulling from outside the standard pack network." She heard him shift. "It was spread across the whole table. He'd been at it all night."
"Was he angry?"
"No." A pause. "That's the part I need you to understand. He wasn't angry. He was — I've known him for twelve years and I don'
