Alaric
I found Bear in his usual spot near the garage's back office, same as always, and understood the moment he saw both our faces that whatever news we'd returned with carried weight considerably beyond an ordinary update.
"You found something," he said, not quite a question.
"We found everything," Marlowe said, setting the worn notebook carefully on the desk between them. "Whitfield's own notes. Confirmation, in his own handwriting, that he sold information to Blackfang directly. Route, timing, crew size — all of it, for a payment that let him disappear and start over completely."
Bear went very still, staring at the notebook without immediately reaching for it, and I watched thirty years of carried, uncertain guilt collide with the sudden, devastating weight of actual confirmation
