Mentor Problem

Nico confronts Mason Greer in a parking garage because dramatic lighting is what men like them mistake for privacy. I come only because the leak already made professionalism a decorative preference. Greer steps out of his sedan looking expensive, tired, and offended that anyone younger still believes systems are supposed to blush.

"You used my witness locations," Nico says.

"I slowed a provincial implosion before it took down half the donor backbone of this state," Greer answers. "You're welcome."

The bluntness startles even me. Greer sees it and almost smiles. "You think this is about one charity and one ambitious family. It isn't. Harbor House became useful because everyone needed somewhere for the consequences to go."

"Into children?" I ask.

He gives me a weary look. "Into files. The children were already there."

If evil were always theatrical, we would survive it more often. Instead it sounds like process. Nico steps forward. "Did you leak Mia?"

Greer pauses too long. "I warned interested parties the archive was destabilizing. If they acted clumsily, that is on them."

Tessa, standing behind me, makes a sound so small it barely counts as language. Greer notices her and finally lets genuine surprise show. "My God," he says. "You really did live."

"Bad for your memos, I know."

Greer straightens his cuffs. "If you touch the sealed boxes tonight, the rally tomorrow becomes irrelevant. So do a number of judges. bishops. hospital boards. There are ways to do this that keep the state functioning."

"There are ways to do it that keep the rich upholstered," I say.

He looks at me with something close to pity. "Mrs. Hart, those are often the same thing."

Nico arrests him on obstruction and unauthorized disclosure right there between oil stains and painted pillars. Greer does not resist. Men like him never think the garage is truly for them.