Page 60 of Deadly Force

Because it doesn’t matter if Samantha is a natural, if this goes wrong?—

I’mthe one Mick will hold responsible.

Caleb

Mateo wakes long enough to prove he's too stubborn to bleed out without permission, mumbling something about Jell-O before his eyes drift shut again.

"I'll go find some," I tell Brooke, pushing back from my chair.

The cafeteria's two floors down, and by the time I'm heading back with a cup of green Jell-O and a plastic spoon, my phone buzzes. Delilah's reply. So far, Sonora Investments looks clean. No pending lawsuits, no allegations, nothing that screams corporate conspiracy. Which somehow makes me more suspicious, not less. A company that big should have plenty of skeletons in its closet.

I pocket the phone and slip back into the room. Mateo's eyes are open when I set the Jell-O on his bedside table.

"Green?" he croaks, eyeing the cup like I've personally offended him.

"Didn't know you had a color preference."

He manages two spoonfuls before he falls asleep.I take the spoon out of his hand and set it aside, checking his monitors one more time. Still steady.

Brooke didn’t seem to notice I left. She's got files spread across the window ledge like she's trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Every time she leans forward to make a note, I get a subtle hint of her perfume and lose track of what I'm supposed to be thinking about. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets people killed in my line of work. Focus on the wrong thing at the wrong time, and someone ends up here.

Like Mateo.

My phone buzzes just as Brooke leans in to say something. “Hold up. Text from Sam.”

I scan the message while she waits, eyes on me, tension winding tighter by the second.

Found a friend of Eliza's. Mia Park. Senior. Lab partner. She said Eliza had a thing with an older guy. Intense. Possibly married. Eliza was trying to end it. Also talked to Gavin Patel from her study group. Said she hated drugs, debated it in class with him once.

I read it twice. Glance at Brooke. She's circling a name with fingers that don't quite stay steady. The stress is getting to her, but she's fighting hard.

I slide the phone toward her. "Mia Park says Eliza was seeing someone. Older. Intense. Shewanted out. And her study group friend says she hated drugs."

Brooke lifts her eyes. Green like her brother's, focused, with that little crease between her brows that shows up when she's processing something.

She nods once. Keeps highlighting. The sound of the marker on paper mixes with the mechanical wheeze of the ventilator in the next room. Hospital acoustics, everything echoes, nothing stays private.

Buzz. Another message. Sam is working fast.

I relay the message to Brooke. “Dr. Callahan confirmed Eliza asked how far academic protections go if you're holding criminal evidence. He brushed her off, regrets it now. Same story from everyone she’s talked to. No one believes she was suicidal.”

Brooke closes the binder and leans back in her chair. The movement draws my attention to the way her shirt pulls across her chest, and I have to consciously redirect my focus to Mateo's monitor. Still beeping. Still alive. Out of his head on the good drugs.

"They all knew something was wrong," she says.

"Yeah."

"They just didn't think she was worth stopping for."

I don't answer. There's nothing to say. People see what they want to see, help who they want to help. The rest get filed under "someone else's problem" until it's too late to matter.

"She was trying to protect something," I say. "Maybe someone."

Brooke doesn't speak. Her hand flattens over the binder like she's trying to steady it or herself. "I think I have something."

"Show me," I say.

She shifts beside me and slides the binder onto my lap. "I think she buried something important under the Sonora and school stuff. Take a look."