Jac stepped off the bus into air that bit a little harder than the day before. Billings in February never pretended to be hospitable, but the cold seemed to have teeth that morning, nipping through the seams of her coat and up under the cuff of her slacks. Her breath fogged in quick bursts as she crossed the lot toward the precinct, boots sliding once on a patch of black ice that hadn’t caught the morning sun yet.

  She caught herself on the hood of a cruiser, palm stinging, and took a breath. “Graceful, Vincent,” she muttered under it, pushing off again.

  The building ahead of her looked the same as always—concrete shoulders, narrow windows, a faded city emblem over the doors—but something felt different the second she stepped inside. It was in the noise. Not loud, not chaotic. Just… wrong. Too many phones ringing at once. Radio chatter turned up a little higher. Voices held at a strained, artificial calm.

  She tapped snow from her boots on the mat and walked down the hallway toward the bullpen. A uniform she knew only by face brushed past her without the usual nod. Two patrol officers stood at the copy machine, talking in low, clipped sentences that stopped when she got close.

  Her stomach tightened.

  “Vincent,” someone called from a nearby desk. “They’re looking for you.”

  She turned. Morales, one of the other detectives, jabbed a thumb toward the far end of the bullpen. “Your partner’s in with the captain.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Her voice sounded steadier than she felt.

  She wove through the cluster of desks, eyes catching on case boards, coffee cups, the familiar clutter.

  When she rounded the corner, she saw Bruce immediately. He stood outside the captain’s office, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee that he hadn’t bothered to drink. His tie hung loose, shirt sleeves wrinkled, dark circles under his eyes darker than she’d seen them. He looked like he’d slept somewhere that wasn’t a bed.

  “Morning,” Jac said cautiously.

  Bruce glanced up. For a second, the usual sardonic comment hovered on his face, then dropped away. “Halden’s dead,” he said.

  The words hit harder than the cold outside. Jac felt her mouth go dry. “What?”

  “Neighbor found her at her front door this morning,” Bruce said. “Uniforms got there first. Homicide. It’s brutal.”

  Her brain did the quick, reflexive math: Halden. The leak. The case. The last time Bruce had left the precinct last night.

  “You… you saw her,” she said slowly. “Last night.”

  He nodded once. “Yeah.”

  A hundred questions flashed through her mind. Was it connected? Had someone followed him? How close had he come to being the one on the floor instead? She pushed them down.

  The captain’s door cracked open. Captain Ritter, sleeves rolled, tie already loosened, jerked his chin toward them. “Inside,” he said. “Both of you.”

  Jac followed Bruce in. The captain’s office was a cramped rectangle of paper stacks and old furniture, blinds half-open against the gray morning. A crime-scene photo lay facedown on his desk. Jac was grateful for that, at least.

  “Sit,” Ritter said.

  They did. Jac found it hard to sit comfortably.

  Ritter looked from one to the other. “So. Our John Doe’s not just a one-off anymore. We’ve got a second body, and this one’s a woman who shows up in your notes as tied to that MentaTech leak.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bruce said.

  “You talked to her last night.”

  “Yes, sir,” he repeated.

  “How’d she seem?”

  “Scared,” Bruce said. “But not of us. She didn’t know anything about the murder, didn’t think any of the others were capable of it. Confirmed Stall—” He corrected himself without thinking. “Doe. Our victim. Was jumpy, paranoid.”

  Ritter grunted. “And now she’s dead in her doorway with half her chest caved in. That’s what the prelim says.”

  Jac swallowed. The image forced itself into her mind whether she wanted it or not.

  “Who else knew about your visit?” Ritter asked.

  “Just us and dispatch,” Bruce said. “And Halden herself.”

  “Then somebody is either ahead of us or close behind,” Ritter said. “Either way, this isn’t just some lover’s spat gone nuclear. Somebody’s working a list. Yours.”

  Jac leaned forward. “Sir… the other names Stanley gave us. Tally, Ringer. We need to talk to them before anyone else does.”

  Ritter met her eyes. “You’ll get your shot. But listen to me very carefully, Vincent—this isn’t an exercise anymore. The lab leak got press, sure. But if this escalates, we’re going to have the feds breathing down our necks wanting to make it their show. You and Morrow are on the wire because you were there first. Don’t give them a reason to yank it.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Evan Tally is next,” Ritter went on. “I have his address. He’s still in town. No record of him leaving overnight. Ringer…” He made a face. “No one’s seen him at his last listed address in days. Landlord says mail’s piling up. For now, Tally’s our best shot.”

  “Understood,” Bruce said.

  Ritter slid a slip of paper across the desk. “Here’s Tally’s place. I want you two over there now. Vincent, you take point on the interview. He’s more likely to open up to you than to this grizzled bastard.”

  Bruce snorted softly. Jac’s heart jumped.

  “Sir, I—” she started.

  “You’ve read the file,” Ritter said. “You were in the room at MentaTech. You know the dynamics. You’re leading this interview. Morrow will step in if you start drowning.” He glanced at Bruce. “Try not to let her drown.”

  Bruce grunted. “No promises.”

  “That’s it,” Ritter said. “Go. And for God’s sake, don’t go anywhere alone.”

  They stepped out into the bullpen again. The noise rolled over them—the phones, the chatter, the static-laced radios. Jac held Tally’s address between her fingers like it might bite.

  “You good?” Bruce asked.

  “I’m leading,” she said, more to convince herself than him. “I’m good.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

  Bruce’s car smelled faintly of old coffee and winter air that hadn’t decided whether to stay or go. Jac buckled in, her fingers moving mechanically, eyes drifting to the side mirror where the precinct receded behind them.

  She watched the city slide past as they drove. Billings looked ordinary in the mid-morning light—gas stations, convenience stores, a strip of two-story buildings with flat roofs, a church marquee with a crooked message about grace. Somewhere out there, someone had killed a man and torn him apart like a piece of machinery. Somewhere out there, someone had knocked on Halden’s door after midnight. The thought chased itself around her mind.

  “Hey,” Bruce said.

  She realized she’d been staring out the window for longer than she thought. “Yeah?”

  “You’re breathing like you’re about to run a mile,” he said. “Relax. He’s just a guy in an apartment.”

  “He’s a guy in an apartment who might have gotten our last interview killed,” Jac said.

  “Emphasis on might,” Bruce said. “We don’t know that. We know he was fired. We know he had words with Stall. We know he’s pissed at MentaTech. But pissed doesn’t equal murderer.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “It’s supposed to get your head straight. Don’t walk in there already convinced he’s the monster or already convinced he’s innocent. Walk in and listen. That’s the job.”

  She nodded, exhaling slowly through her nose. “Listen. I got it.”

  Bruce’s gaze cut to her and back to the road. “You’re gonna feel the urge to prove something in there. Prove you can handle it. Prove you deserve the badge. Don’t prove anything. Just ask the questions.”

  “What if I screw it up?” Jac asked quietly.

  “Then I’ll step in,” he said. “And I’ll be an asshole about it, and you’ll hate me for an hour, and then you’ll do better next time.” He paused. “But I don’t think you’re gonna screw it up.”

  She let that sit between them for a minute. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Don’t get sentimental on me,” he replied, but there was no bite in it.

  They turned off onto a street of two-story complexes built in the seventies, long decks, peeling paint, cars parked in slushy, uneven rows. Tally’s address corresponded to a unit on the second floor, far left end.

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  Bruce parked near the stairwell and killed the engine. Jac’s heart ticked a little faster.

  “Okay,” he said. “You knock. Let your face do the work. People like him don’t feel threatened by people like you.”

  “People like me?” she repeated.

  “You’re young,” he said. “You’re new. You look like you still give a damn what people think about you. That’s a good thing here. Use it.”

  She made a face. “That’s either the worst compliment I’ve ever gotten, or the best backhanded one.”

  “Detective’s choice,” he said, opening his door.

  They climbed the metal stairs, each footfall ringing against the rail. Jac could feel the cold seeping through the soles of her boots, the thin crust of snow that hadn’t quite melted yet crunching underfoot.

  At Tally’s door, she took a breath and knocked. Three sharp raps.

  There was a muffled thump from inside. Then a man’s voice, more annoyed than cautious.

  “Yeah, yeah, hang on.”

  Locks clicked. The door opened. Evan Tally looked like he’d been assembled from two different people and never quite fused correctly. Narrow shoulders, long arms, hair matted in places where it had dried in the wrong direction. His glasses sat crooked on his nose, his t-shirt advertised a band Jac had never heard of, and there were faint circles under his eyes that suggested too many nights of staring at screens.

  “Can I help—oh.” His gaze dropped to Jac’s badge, then glossed past her to Bruce. “Great. Cops. Again.”

  “Mr. Tally?” Jac said, shifting her weight so he had to look at her to answer.

  “That depends,” he said. “If this is about the noise complaint, it was movie night. I turned it down. If this is about my parking, the lines are a suggestion, and everyone knows it.”

  “It’s about neither,” Jac said. “I’m Detective Vincent. This is Detective Morrow. We’re here about George Stall.”

  His expression pinched. “So that was him in the storage unit. Yeah. I heard.”

  “Can we come in?” Jac asked.

  Tally hesitated, eyes scanning the walkway as if checking for an escape route that didn’t exist.

  “Yeah. Okay.” He stepped back. “Just don’t touch anything that looks expensive. It’s probably broken, but I like to pretend it works.”

  Jac entered first. Bruce followed, quietly taking in the space. The living room was cramped but organized in its own chaotic way—stacks of notebooks, open textbooks, printed diagrams pinned to a corkboard over a small desk. A soldering iron and circuit board sat mid-project on the coffee table. The environment hummed with a mind that preferred machines to people.

  “Nice setup,” Jac said, more to break the ice than anything.

  “Thanks,” Tally said, closing the door. “It’s what’s left after you take my lab away.”

  He flopped into an armchair without being asked. Jac and Bruce remained standing for a beat, then she took the edge of the sofa, setting her notebook on her knee. Bruce stayed by the door, arms loosely crossed.

  “Tough night?” Tally said, gesturing vaguely toward them. “You both look like you’ve been run over.”

  “We’ve been busy,” Jac said. “You heard about Dr. Halden?”

  His flippant expression faltered. “Yeah. The neighbor across the hall showed me the morning news. I thought it was a sick joke at first.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Jac asked.

  “A few weeks before MentaTech kicked us out,” Tally said. “She was still trying to salvage something from the wreckage. She said she might freelance. She said George was acting weird.”

  “Weird how?” Jac asked.

  “Weirder than usual,” Tally amended. “He was always kind of… spaced. Genius-level minded, but socially? He acted like people were an afterthought. But near the end, he got paranoid. Jammed locks, triple-checking doors, freaking out about who had access to his notes. Like we weren’t all under the same microscope.”

  “You think he leaked the report?” Jac asked.

  Tally’s mouth twisted. “I think he was careless. I think he thought rules were for other people. Do I think he was the one who sent the files to the press?” He wobbled his hand. “Fifty-fifty.”

  “Who else had motive?” Jac asked, forcing her voice to stay even. Her fingers tapped against the edge of her notebook.

  Tally eyed her. “You already know the names. You talked to Stanley, right? He’s probably still polishing his halo for the ethics review panel.”

  “Humor us,” Jac said. “In your own words.”

  Tally sighed. “Okay. Marla had motive, sure, but she also had a conscience. She got hurt more than any of us from that mess. She hated how management spun the research to sound scary. I could see her threatening to leak as leverage, but I don’t see her going through with it. Ringer?” He snorted. “Luke always thought someone was out to get him. Maybe he beat them to the punch.”

  “And you?” Jac asked. “Where do you fit?”

  He tilted his head at her, one eyebrow arching. “You practice that question in the mirror?”

  “A little,” she admitted before she could stop herself.

  It startled him into a short laugh. “At least you’re honest.” The laugh broke off quickly. “Look, I was mad. Still am. I poured years into that project. Then they cut us loose and pretended we were the problem. But I didn’t leak anything. If I was going to take credit for something, it wouldn’t be that.”

  “Where were you two nights ago?” Jac asked.

  His eyes sharpened. “Is this where you ask if I ripped some guy apart in a storage locker after hitting a high C at karaoke?”

  Jac blinked. “So you are confirming you were singing karaoke.”

  Bruce’s mouth tugged upward for half a second.

  Tally sighed dramatically. “Yes. The Blue Lantern, on Broadwater. Monday night is 80s night. I murdered ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ in front of ten very unimpressed strangers and one extremely baked bartender. You can ask any of them. They’ll remember. It was traumatic.”

  Jac scribbled it down, but her shoulders eased a fraction. “And last night?” she asked. “Between eleven and one?”

  “That’s specific,” Tally said. “What, you guys on some kind of serial schedule?”

  “Answer the question,” Bruce said from the doorway, his tone flattening the air.

  Tally flinched, glanced back at Jac, and then away. “Home. Here. Wiring that thing.” He gestured to the circuit board. “I don’t exactly have a nightlife. My landlord lives downstairs. If I sneeze too loud, he bangs the ceiling. He’d confirm if I’d started practicing my axe-murdering routine.”

  Jac opened her mouth to keep going—that was the plan, push a little harder, see if he cracked—but the next question caught in her throat. The words tangled with the image of Halden at her door, chest crushed, as if someone had pushed a building into her. Her fingers tightened on the pen.

  Bruce shifted. “That’s enough timeline for now,” he said smoothly, stepping in. “Mr. Tally, you said Ringer always thought someone was out to get him. Out to get him how?” And just like that, the interview tilted.

  Jac exhaled slowly, sat back a fraction of an inch, and let Bruce take the lead—for the moment.

  Tally rubbed his palms down the sides of his jeans, gaze flicking between them like he was weighing which answer carried the least trouble.

  “Luke wasn’t… wrong, exactly,” he said at last. “Paranoid, sure, but that’s because half the people in that building treated him like a walking liability. He was the one always checking the numbers, double-checking protocols. When management started doing that PR spin—acting like we were making Frankenstein skins or whatever—Luke got jumpy. Thought they’d hang him out to dry if anything went sideways.”

  Jac frowned. “Did he have reason to think that?”

  Tally gave a humorless laugh. “Because it happened. They used his name as the scapegoat internally. He didn’t know that—at least not officially—but he could smell it. People like him always can. He packed up and left town the same week they cut us loose.”

  “Where’d he go?” Bruce asked.

  “Hell if I know. He didn’t tell anyone. Just said he had cousins up north somewhere. Or a cabin. Or a fallout bunker. Depends on which mood he was in.”

  Jac wrote that down. “So you think Ringer leaked the report.”

  “I think he panicked.” Tally shrugged. “And panicked people do dumb shit.”

  Jac hesitated, then locked eyes with him. “And what about Stall? What did you think he was capable of?”

  Tally’s expression shifted—some mixture of contempt and discomfort.

  “What, besides stealing everyone’s ideas?” he said. “George wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t even all that ambitious. He just lived in his own little world. He had no idea how badly people wanted to smack him some days.” He huffed. “But I didn’t want him dead.”

  “Did he ever seem afraid of something specific?” Jac asked. “Something more than the usual stress?”

  Tally hesitated. “He changed his routines, yeah. Stopped riding with people. Started talking about ‘cleanup’ like it was a real threat. And he kept mentioning something—someone—like there was a shadow following him, but he wouldn’t explain it.”

  Jac looked up sharply. “A shadow?”

  Tally shook his head fast. “I don’t mean literal. Just… fear. Real fear. Paranoid fear. Like the walls were listening.”

  Bruce stepped in. “Did he ever mention a name?”

  “Never a name,” Tally answered. “Said, ‘If they ever find me, I’m dead.’ I thought he meant corporate retaliation. IP theft. NDA lawsuits. You know—normal tech drama.”

  Jac felt a chill move down her spine. “What did he describe this person as?” she asked.

  “Never a person,” Tally said. “I figured Feds, military maybe. Or ex-military. He wouldn’t say more. He shut down when I pressed him. Lock-the-door kind of shut down.”

  Bruce and Jac exchanged a look.

  Jac cleared her throat. “Mr. Tally… allow me to remind you that Dr. Halden was found dead this morning.”

  She didn’t mean to say it so softly, but the words came out like that anyway.

  Tally’s face softened in a way Jac hadn’t expected. “Yeah,” he whispered. “She didn’t deserve that.”

  “No one does,” Jac said.

  Bruce interjected. “We’re asking basic questions right now, nothing accusatory. But we need to know—doyou feel you’re in danger?”

  Tally snorted. “From who? Some corporate bogeyman? Or the guy who ripped Stall apart? If the killer’s working down the list, I guess that puts me next.” He rubbed his temples. “But I didn’t leak anything. And I didn’t kill anyone. And I didn’t sleep with anyone. My motive’s garbage, your timeline’s garbage, and I’ve got no reason to hurt Halden.” He slumped back against the chair.

  Jac inhaled, then centered herself. She needed to push past her nerves, past Bruce stepping in, past her own shaky footing.

  She leaned forward. “Mr. Tally,” she said, her tone sharper than before. “We’re trying to determine who stood to lose the most. You were on the project. You were cut loose. You were angry. That puts you high on a list, whether you like it or not.”

  He stared at her. Something changed in his eyes—annoyance, yes, but also respect.

  He exhaled. “You’re right,” he said. “But I didn’t do this.”

  Jac nodded once, decisively. “We’ll verify your alibi.”

  “Please do,” he said.

  Bruce stepped forward. “Two more questions. Then we’re done.” His tone brooked no argument. “One: If someone were targeting the people on that project, who would be the absolute last person you’d expect to survive it?”

  “Stall,” Tally said immediately. “He was the weakest link. No spine. No danger sense. No clue how to hide himself. If he had a secret, he’d leave it taped to a fridge.”

  Bruce nodded. “And two: Did he ever mention a storage facility? A place he kept things off-book?”

  Tally blinked. “Stall? No. But Marla said he kept stashes all around town. Little caches. Old apartments he never fully moved out of. A storage lockup, maybe. She knew more about his weird routine crap than anyone.”

  “Did she give specifics?” Jac pressed, her voice steady now.

  “No. Just said he had ‘stations,’ like he was a goddamn squirrel.”

  Bruce’s jaw clenched.

  Jac wrote.

  Finally, Bruce said, “All right. That’s all for now.”

  Tally sagged with visible relief. “Can I go back to pretending I understand how life works now?”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Jac said, rising.

  “And Tally?” Bruce added.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you feel eyes on you, don’t play hero. Call us.”

  Tally swallowed, then nodded.

  The door clicked shut behind them. Jac walked a few steps down the walkway before she let out the breath she’d been holding.

  “Well,” she said. Her voice was steadier than her insides felt. “That wasn’t… terrible.”

  “You did fine,” Bruce said.

  “Fine?” she echoed, raising a brow.

  “You started shaky, but you caught your footing,” he said. “You made him talk. You asked the right things. You only panicked once.”

  “I did not panic,” Jac muttered.

  He gave her a look.

  She huffed. “Okay. Maybe a little.”

  Bruce smirked but didn’t push it. “Kid, nobody gets it right the first dozen times. The point is you stuck with it.”

  Jac felt something warm settle in her chest. “I still hate how it feels,” she said softly. “Halden’s dead. And I sat there trying not to think about what she looked like.”

  “Welcome to homicide,” Bruce said. His tone wasn’t cruel—just honest. “You’re gonna see things that claw into you. The trick is not letting them drive.”

  They reached the stairwell. Jac rested her hand against the cold metal railing. “Is that what you do?” she asked. “Not let them drive?”

  Bruce didn’t answer right away. His eyes drifted to the parking lot, to the dull gray sky over the city.

  “No,” he admitted. “Sometimes I just try to remember where the brakes are.”

  They walked in silence down the stairs. At the bottom, Jac’s pager beeped—a sharp, insistent chirp.

  Bruce’s expression darkened. “That’ll be about Halden.”

  She swallowed. “Or Ringer.”

  They moved toward the car, case pressure rising. Death count rising.

  The circle tightening.

  Jac reached for the passenger door and hesitated. “Bruce?” she said quietly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think we’re being followed?”

  Bruce paused, his gaze tracked the row of cars, the far edges of the lot, the quiet spaces between buildings. Finally he said, “I think we’re not moving carefully enough.”

  He opened the door. “We should fix that.”

  Jac climbed in, and the engine turned over; Bruce checked the rearview mirror one last time, then they were off.