Lila's Recording

Lila's recording began with breathing.

Not fear this time. Preparation.

"If you are hearing this, I ran because I finally remembered where Greyhaven kept the driver files. Miles said the crash would come from someone boring. Not a killer. A vendor. Someone with invoices."

Nora sat between Brooke and Ruiz in Daniel's hospital room. Sophie slept curled in the visitor chair, exhausted by adults and justice.

Lila continued. "The man who cut my neck was named Owen Pike. He worked security on Greyhaven Island. He later started a medical transport company. Kind Harbor used him for patient transfers that were not really transfers."

Brooke typed the name.

Ruiz was already searching.

"Owen Pike," Lila said, "drove the SUV behind Miles. I saw him in Judith's garage two days before the crash, cleaning a portable road hazard kit. I told Miles. He said he had moved the hearing up. He said public paper would protect him."

Nora's hands closed around each other until her knuckles hurt.

"He was wrong," Lila said, and her voice cracked there. "I was wrong for leaving him to be wrong alone."

The recording shifted. Wind. A gull. Water.

Brooke looked up. "Greyhaven Island."

"I'm going back," Lila said. "If they kept the old witness rooms, they kept the driver ledger. Judith never destroys trophies. She reclassifies them."

Ruiz paused the file. "We are not letting Nora go there."

Nora laughed once.

Ruiz pointed at her. "That was not an invitation to argue."

Brooke's phone buzzed with a Harbor Union hearing notice.

Preliminary contested claim session: forty-eight hours.

Scope: current claim only.

Required attendees: Nora Vale, Harbor Union legal, Kind Harbor representative, Vale Family Foundation liaison.

Brooke read the last line twice.

Foundation liaison: Judith Hart Vale.

For the first time, the alias and the woman sat in the same official field.