A tiny smile appeared through tears.
“You once cut power to a live building using bolt cutters.”
“Emergency.”
“You caught fire.”
“Briefly.”
The smile disappeared.
“I’m sorry, Evan.”
“Where is the archive?”
She looked at me.
“I honestly don't know.”
“Then why does Logan think you do?”
“Because twenty-three years ago, I told Marshall I burned it.”
“You didn't?”
“No.”
“Who took it?”
Hannah whispered one name.
“Leah.”
Leah Morgan had not disappeared.
She had become Dr. Leah Monroe.
Clinical psychologist.
Richmond, Virginia.
Hannah had known for fourteen years.
“You found her?”
“Online.”
“Did you contact her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because what would I say?”
I stared.
“Hello?”
Hannah laughed bitterly.
“Hi, Leah. Remember when you were sixteen and I pinned you to the floor while adults abused us?”
“You were a child too.”
“That didn't make my knee feel lighter on her back.”
We drove to Virginia the next morning.
Together.
It was the first long drive we'd taken since Sophie was fifteen.
For two hours we barely spoke.
Then Hannah said, “You don't have to fight Logan.”
“I know.”
“Then don't.”
“I haven't decided.”
“That means yes.”
“You know me too well.”
She looked out the window.
“That used to be the problem.”
Leah's office occupied a small brick building.
When Hannah gave her name to reception, we waited forty minutes.
Then Leah appeared.
She was forty.
Professional clothes.
Calm eyes.
She looked at Hannah for several seconds.
“Melissa.”
Hannah stood.
“I'm sorry.”
No greeting.
No explanation.
Just those words.
Leah's face remained unreadable.
“For what?”
“All of it.”
Leah closed the office door behind us.
“I wondered whether you'd ever come.”
Hannah sat.
“You knew my name?”
“I found you.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Why didn't you contact me?”
Leah smiled sadly.
“Same reason you didn't contact me.”
Fair.
I remained quiet.
This wasn't mine.
Hannah spoke.
“Do you have the archive?”
Leah's eyes shifted toward me.
“Who is he?”
“My husband.”
“Ex-husband.”
Hannah looked at me.
“Not technically yet.”
Leah almost smiled.
Then she became serious.
“Yes.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
“You have it?”
“Most of it.”
“Why?”
“Because the night I ran, I took Marshall's emergency bag.”
“Why?”
“I thought it had money.”
Inside were tapes.
Documents.
Photographs.
Financial ledgers.
Leah hid them in an abandoned church.
Years later she retrieved them.
“Why didn't you expose him?”
“I tried.”
“Police?”
“Two reporters. A lawyer. State investigators.”
“And?”
“Everyone wanted a clean victim.”
Hannah's face changed.
Leah continued.
“We weren't clean.”
Some girls had bullied others.
Some had enforced rules.
Some stole.
Some lied.
Some protected themselves by hurting others.
Marshall had created a system in which victims also became participants.
That made prosecution complicated.
“He counted on shame,” Leah said.
I thought of Logan.
Same strategy.
“Where are the records now?” Hannah asked.
“Safe.”
“Logan Price is looking for them.”
“I know.”
“You know Logan?”
Leah nodded.
“He contacted me last year.”
My body tightened.
“What did he want?”
“Money.”
Not the archive?
“He already has part of it.”
We stared.
“How?”
“His father digitized selected records before he died.”
Leah looked at Hannah.
“He doesn't need the originals to blackmail people.”
“Then why is he obsessed with them?”
“Because they contain something his father never copied.”
“What?”
Leah opened a locked drawer.
She removed a file.
MARSHALL PRICE — FINANCIAL LEDGER.
Inside were bank transactions.
Payments.
Names.
One name made Hannah stand.
“Dana Pierce.”
Leah nodded.
Another:
Rebecca Sloan.
Hannah whispered, “No.”
Rebecca had received payments from Marshall.
For years.
Even after Cedar House closed.
Rebecca met us because Leah called her.
Not willingly.
She arrived furious.
“You had no right.”
Leah remained calm.
“I had every right.”
Rebecca looked at Hannah.
“You brought him?”
“He knows.”
“Everything?”
“No.”
Rebecca laughed.
“Of course not.”
I stepped back.
The four of us sat in Leah's conference room.
Rebecca finally explained.
Marshall recruited her after Cedar House closed.
Not immediately.
First he threatened her.
Then he offered money.
“I was eighteen.”
Hannah stared at her.
“You gave him names.”
Rebecca's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Girls who talked?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“No.”
Hannah laughed without humor.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I never told him where you went.”
“But you contacted Logan.”
Rebecca's jaw tightened.
“That was different.”
“How?”
“My husband died because of him.”
“Caleb is alive.”
Rebecca froze.
Hannah looked between us.
“Caleb?”
Rebecca turned toward me.
“You talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“He lied to you.”
“So did you.”
Silence.
Then Rebecca broke.
Her husband who died was not Caleb.
After Caleb, she remarried a man named Jonathan.
Jonathan invested in Logan's youth foundation.
He discovered financial fraud.
Logan destroyed his reputation with edited footage from a staged confrontation.
Jonathan spiraled.
Then died by suicide.
Rebecca blamed Logan.
“So you gave him Hannah's identity?”
“I wanted to get close.”
“You used me as bait,” Hannah said.
“I thought you could handle him.”
Hannah stood.
“You thought I could handle him?”
Rebecca stood too.
“You always could handle Marshall.”
“That was survival.”
“You were stronger than us.”
“No.”
Hannah's voice cracked.
“I was just more useful to him.”
Leah intervened.
“Stop.”
Nobody did.
Rebecca pointed at Hannah.
“You disappeared. You got married. Had a daughter. Built a normal life.”
“And you think that means I wasn't still there every night?”
“You left us.”
“I was nineteen!”
“So was I!”
The room went silent.
That was the truth beneath everything.
Children had grown old carrying accusations that belonged to adults.
Rebecca sat.
“I wanted Logan to panic.”
Hannah whispered, “Instead he found me.”
“Yes.”
“And Sophie.”
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“I didn't know he would go that far.”
I finally spoke.
“What is the fight for?”
Rebecca rubbed her face.
“Logan wants you publicly discredited.”
“Why me?”
“Because Hannah started refusing him.”
“Still doesn't answer.”
“He thinks she gave you the archive.”
“I don't have it.”
“I know.”
“But he doesn't.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“And Friday night gives him a chance to search your house.”
I stood.
“What?”
“He knows you'll be at the gym.”
Hannah went pale.
“Sophie.”
I called immediately.
She answered.
“Dad?”
“Where are you?”
“My dorm.”
“Stay there.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?”
I called Marcus.
“Go to my house.”
“Why?”
“Now.”
He arrived twenty minutes later.
Back door broken.
Office searched.
Attic emptied.
Nothing stolen except the cassette tape.
Logan wasn't looking for money.
He wanted history.
The fight had been distraction.
And I had walked into it willingly.
I told Rebecca, “Friday is still happening.”
Hannah slammed her hand on the table.
“No.”
Leah studied me.
“Why?”
“Because now Logan thinks I still have something.”
“You don't.”
“He doesn't know that.”
Hannah stared.
“You want him focused on you.”
“Yes.”
“So we can move the real archive.”
I looked at Leah.
She nodded slowly.
Hannah shook her head.
“This is insane.”
I almost smiled.
“You married me.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then said, “That was insane too.”
It was the first time we'd both laughed together in months.
I had trained seriously once.
Army combatives.
Boxing at twenty-five.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu until my knee ended that hobby.
None of that made me qualified to fight a competitive kickboxer nearly twenty years younger.
Mack Torres did.
Mack had served with me.
He now owned a boxing gym.
When I told him, he stared for ten seconds.
“No.”
“I didn't ask.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Need advice.”
“Advice: don't.”
“Anything useful?”
“Yes. Update your will.”
I explained the plan.
That changed his expression.
“So winning doesn't matter.”
“No.”
“Then you have a chance.”
“Encouraging.”
We trained for survival.
Defense.
Distance.
Breathing.
Clinching.
How not to panic when hurt.
“How long?”
“Five rounds.”
Mack laughed.
“You won't last five.”
“Again, encouraging.”
“You shouldn't.”
“What?”
“If Logan controls the event, don't play his game.”
I understood.
The contract stated exhibition fight.
Three-minute rounds.
But nothing said I had to trade punches.
Logan wanted humiliation.
Anger.
A dramatic knockout.
My goal was different.
Stay conscious.
Keep cameras running.
Keep him occupied.
Meanwhile Leah and Hannah would move the archive to three attorneys and two journalists.