Jade Calloway had two modes when she suspected something.
The first was direct — she asked the question plainly, looked you in the eye, and waited with the particular patience of someone who had decided they were going to get an answer and the only variable was how long it took. This mode was efficient and slightly terrifying and most people capitulated within thirty seconds.
The second was oblique — she circled the thing, approached it from angles, asked questions that were technically about something else but were actually about the thing, until the person she was talking to either confessed voluntarily or found themselves so thoroughly cornered that confession felt like their own idea.
I had known Jade for eleven years. I knew both modes intimately. I could see them coming from a dis
