They stood in the bookshop for a long time after Marcus left.
Not speaking.
The morning light coming through the front glass at its usual low angle. The lamp doing what it always did. The shelves exactly as they always were.
Ordinary.
Damian thought about how the ordinary quality of a space could hold things that were not ordinary. About how the bookshop had been holding things for months now — conversations that changed the shape of what came after, documents spread across the counter, the envelope in the drawer.
Now this.
*I commissioned the methodology.*
*The Roberts boy has been in our documentation since he was nineteen. That was my decision.*
"Say what you're thinking," Damian said.
Kendrick looked at him.
"I'm thinking," Kendrick said slowly, "that my father has been lying to me."
"Has he," Damian said.
Kendrick frowned slightly.
"He said he didn't know about Reeves," he said. "He said when I told him Reeves's name — his reaction—"
