Chapter 41: Patient 26
Judith Hahn did not answer her phone.
Elena stood in the office parking garage, the engine running, her phone pressed to her ear. The call went to voicemail — a generic greeting, the kind that comes pre-recorded on a new device. No name. No personal message. Just a tone and then silence.
"She's not picking up," Elena said.
Nadia was in the passenger seat, her laptop open on her knees. She had pulled Judith's employee file from the Reeve directory during the morning — a risk Elena had advised against, but Nadia had done it anyway, using a credential she had obtained from Sana's first batch of leaks three weeks ago. The file was sparse: Judith Hahn, age thirty-eight, hired as a clinical intake coordinator fourteen months ago, reassigned to administrative support six months later. No disciplinary actions. No commendations. A flat, unremarkable employment history that Elena recognized as the profile of someone who had been quietly demoted for asking the wrong questions.
"Patient 26," Nadia read from the screen. "First redaction fourteen months ago. Clinical Urgency authorization signed by Dr. Calloway. Second authorization signed by Reeve eleven days ago — the same day Maria flagged her in the Gardener queue. Procedure scheduled for—" She looked up. "Tomorrow at two PM. That's twenty-seven hours from now."
Elena shifted the car into gear. "Where does she live?"
Nadia checked the file. "The address listed is the clinic. 414 West Lexington. She may have moved in after the first redaction. It happens — patients lose continuity with their previous living situations."
"Then we go to the clinic."
"Elena. She works there. She's an employee. The clinic staff know her face, know her file. If we walk in and ask for her by name, someone will flag us."
"Then we don't ask for her by name. We ask for her by employee number. Or we wait outside and intercept her when she leaves."
Nadia closed the laptop. "She might not leave. If she knows the second redaction is tomorrow, she might be inside. Preparing. Or hiding. Or already in the observation room waiting for it to happen."
Elena had considered this. The behavior of patients who knew their redaction was coming varied across a narrow spectrum: some ran, some fought, some walked in voluntarily because fighting had become too exhausting. Maria Solano had walked in. Judith Hahn was a clinic employee — she had seen what happened to patients who ran. She knew the system's reach. Running would not have occurred to her as an option.
"She's still in the building," Elena said. "That's where we go."
She drove north toward Midtown. The morning traffic was thinning, the streets filling with the midday rhythm of a city that did not know what was happening inside its own clinics. Nadia made phone calls from the passenger seat — checking in with Webb, updating Kara, following up on the three unaccounted patients from Maria's list. Elena drove with both hands on the wheel, her mind running the geometry of the situation: a clinic with camera surveillance, badge-controlled access, staff trained to recognize redaction candidates, and a patient-employee who was scheduled to disappear inside the system in twenty-seven hours.
Her phone buzzed. Sana.
Starting the log extraction now. The maintenance port is on a ninety-second timeout. If I lose the connection, I may not get another window for six hours. I'll send what I have as soon as I have it.
Elena read the message twice. Sana had proposed this at the end of their last session — accessing the Gardener server logs through a maintenance port that bypassed the air-gap. The logs would contain the modification timestamp, the credentials used, and possibly the raw audit trail of every patient flagged since the rewrite. It was the difference between knowing the algorithm had been changed and proving who changed it.
She typed back: Be careful. Don't risk exposure for the logs.
Sana's reply was immediate: Already exposed. The only question is whether I get evidence before they catch me.
Elena set the phone down. The Midtown skyline rose ahead of them, the glass-and-steel towers catching the winter light. The Reeve-affiliated clinic was in a converted office building on West Lexington — a six-story structure with a medical tenant on the ground floor, a pharmacy on the second, and Reeve Neurotechnologies occupying the third through fifth. The sixth floor was storage. Elena knew the layout; she had been inside once, three years ago, during a protocol review that she no longer remembered.
The clinic's ground-floor entrance had a reception desk, two security cameras, and a glass partition separating the waiting area from the administrative offices beyond. Elena and Nadia entered at 11:40 AM. The receptionist was a young woman with a Reeve lanyard and a practiced smile.
"Can I help you?"
"We're here for an appointment with Dr. Whitfield," Nadia said. "Patient intake consultation."
The receptionist checked her screen. "I don't see a Whitfield on today's schedule."
"He may have booked it under his private practice. We have the confirmation email." Nadia held up her phone, displaying an email Elena had watched her compose twenty minutes ago in the car. The receptionist examined it, frowning.
"I'll check with the administrative office. One moment." She picked up a desk phone and turned slightly away, her voice dropping below the threshold of easy hearing.
Elena used the time. The waiting area was small — eight chairs, a coffee table with outdated magazines, a wall-mounted screen playing a Reeve promotional video on loop. The video featured a woman in her forties, smiling, talking about the relief of letting go of painful memories. The woman's voice was calm, measured, professional. The words were rehearsed. Elena recognized the format: it was a post-redaction testimonial, recorded during the follow-up window when patients typically experienced the euphoric lift that precedes the onset of leakage.
The glass partition reflected the waiting room in a dim overlay. Through it, Elena could see a hallway extending toward a bank of elevators. Badge readers on the elevator doors. Cameras at each end. The third floor — Judith's workplace — was behind those doors.
The receptionist returned. "Dr. Whitfield isn't in today's rotation. I'm sorry. Would you like to reschedule?"
"We'll wait," Nadia said. "He may be running late."
The receptionist hesitated, then nodded. "You're welcome to wait here. I'll let you know when he arrives."
Elena and Nadia sat in the chairs. The promotional video cycled. The receptionist returned to her screen.
"He's not coming," Elena murmured. "We need a different approach."
Nadia was already typing on her phone. A moment later, a text to Elena: Webb is pulling Judith's emergency contact from the patient file. If she has family, we might reach her outside the clinic.
Elena's phone buzzed. Webb.
Judith Hahn, next of kin: brother, David Hahn, address in Astoria. No spouse, no children. Brother listed as emergency contact for both patient and employee files.
Elena typed: Can you call him?
Webb: Already did. He hasn't heard from Judith in four days. Says she stopped returning his calls after her first redaction. He assumed she was "adjusting."
Four days of silence. Elena did the arithmetic: the first redaction fourteen months ago, the re-flagging eleven days ago, the second authorization signed by Reeve, and four days of silence from a woman who had a brother and chose not to call him. Judith knew. She had to know. An employee at the clinic would recognize the signs — the scheduling anomaly, the extra security presence, the quiet shift in administrative protocols that precedes a Clinical Urgency authorization.
She had withdrawn. She was preparing to be erased again.
"Her brother doesn't know where she is," Elena said. "But she's in the building. She has to be."
Nadia looked at the elevator bank. "Badge-controlled. Camera-monitored. We can't get up there without credentials."
"Sana might—"
"Sana is busy with the server logs. And she's already compromised. We can't ask her for another favor."
Elena looked at the reception desk. The receptionist was focused on her screen, her back half-turned. Behind her, a door led to the administrative offices — the area between reception and the elevators, accessible without a badge. Elena had worked in enough Reeve facilities to know the floor plan: reception, admin corridor, elevator bank, clinical floors. The admin corridor was a transition zone. Staff moved through it constantly. If Elena and Nadia walked through during a shift change or a delivery window, they could reach the elevators without triggering a badge alert.
"I'm going through," Elena said.
"Elena—"
"I'll be back in ten minutes. Stay here. If the receptionist asks, I went to the restroom."
Nadia's jaw tightened. She did not argue. She had learned, over the weeks of their partnership, that Elena's decisions were not requests. She nodded once.
Elena stood, walked to the edge of the waiting area, and pushed through the door marked STAFF ONLY. The receptionist looked up. Elena did not pause. She walked with purpose — shoulders straight, pace steady, the walk of someone who belonged in the building and was late for an appointment. The receptionist started to speak, then stopped. The door closed behind Elena.
The admin corridor was a narrow hallway with fluorescent lighting and beige carpet. Doors on either side: offices, break rooms, supply closets. Elena moved quickly, her shoes quiet on the carpet. At the end of the corridor, the elevator bank. Two elevators, both with badge readers. Elena pressed the call button anyway. The left elevator opened — it had been called from inside the building, a staff member descending from an upper floor. Elena stepped in before the doors fully opened.
A woman in blue scrubs glanced at her. Elena looked at her phone, feigning distraction. The elevator climbed. Third floor. Elena pressed the button. The woman in scrubs got off at the fourth. The doors closed. The elevator rose one floor and stopped.
Third floor. The doors opened onto a waiting room identical to the one below — the same chairs, the same magazines, the same promotional video. But this room was empty. The chairs were arranged in a semicircle around a desk that had been pushed against the wall. On the desk: a stack of manila folders, a computer monitor in sleep mode, a coffee mug with a dried ring at the bottom.
Elena moved past the desk. A hallway extended to the left, lined with doors. Some open, some closed. She could hear muffled voices behind one door — two people speaking in low tones, the cadence of clinical conversation. She continued down the hallway, checking each door. An office with a nameplate: DR. R. OKAFOR, CLINICAL DIRECTOR. A supply room. A file storage room with floor-to-ceiling shelves. And at the end of the hallway, a door marked ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT — STAFF ONLY.
She opened it.
Judith Hahn was sitting at a desk in a room the size of a closet. The desk was bare except for a laptop, a phone charger, and a water bottle. The walls were unadorned. The single window looked out onto a brick wall three feet away. The lighting was the flat, colorless wash of a fluorescent tube that had been on too long.
Judith looked up. She was a small woman, thin in a way that suggested recent weight loss. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her eyes were red-rimmed, the whites laced with broken capillaries. She wore a Reeve-branded polo shirt, untucked, the collar frayed. Her hands were folded on the desk in front of her, the fingers interlocked, the knuckles white.
She stared at Elena. Her expression did not change.
"You're not Dr. Whitfield," she said.
"No," Elena said. "I'm not."
Judith's eyes moved to the door behind Elena, then back. "How did you get up here?"
"The elevator."
"The badge reader."
"It was open."
Judith studied her for a long moment. Then she looked down at her interlocked fingers. "You're Elena Marsh. Subject 0. I've seen your file."
The designation hit Elena like a pressure change — sudden, disorienting. Subject 0. Not Dr. Marsh. Not a colleague. A patient. A number in a system.
"You work here," Elena said. "You know what this place does."
"I know what this place does." Judith's voice was flat. "I've been doing it for fourteen months. I intake patients. I process their consent forms. I schedule their procedures. And after the procedures, I confiscate their notes."
She said it without inflection. The words were factual, stripped of opinion or emotion, as if she were reading from a procedure manual.
"The notes the patients write before redaction," Elena said.
"The notes they always write. Every single one. Some of them write pages. Some write a sentence. Some draw pictures. Some write the same word over and over." Judith's fingers tightened. "I collect the notes. I seal them in envelopes. I label them with the patient number and the date. I put them in the files. The patients never see them again."
"And you've been doing this for fourteen months."
"Fourteen months. Since my own first redaction. Reeve offered me a position after the procedure. Said I was a good candidate for administrative work. Said the clinic needed someone who understood the process from both sides." A pause. "He meant someone who wouldn't ask questions. Because I wouldn't remember what the questions were about."
Elena pulled a chair from the corner and sat. The chair was metal, lightweight, the kind that stacks in a closet. It scraped against the floor.
"You were flagged again," Elena said. "Eleven days ago. The modified algorithm. You're Patient 26."
Judith nodded. "I accessed my own file. Stupid. I knew better. But I wanted to see what they had on me — the original authorization, the clinical justification, the evaluation notes. I pulled the file through the internal portal. The system flagged me within forty minutes."
"Forty minutes."
"The Gardener logs everything. Every access, every query, every file opened. I knew that. I did it anyway." She looked at the window. The brick wall filled the frame. "Reeve signed the authorization himself. Not Calloway. Not Okafor. Reeve. He signed it eleven days ago. I saw the form in the queue."
"And you haven't left the building."
"Where would I go?" Judith turned her hands over, palms up, as if examining something invisible. "They know where I live. They know where my brother lives. They know every place I've ever registered an address. The algorithm tracks patients through insurance records, building access logs, credit card transactions. If I leave the city, they'll find me in a day. If I stay, they'll find me tomorrow. At least here, I can—"
She stopped.
"You can what?"
Judith looked at Elena. The red-rimmed eyes held something that Elena recognized — not fear, not resignation, but the particular expression of someone who had already processed the worst outcome and was now operating in the space beyond it.
"I can finish what I started," Judith said. "I've been documenting everything. The intake procedures, the consent violations, the Clinical Urgency authorizations that bypass the evaluation process. I have records of every note I confiscated — patient numbers, dates, contents. I photographed the notes before sealing them. I have four months of documentation on a hard drive in this room."
She reached under the desk and pulled out a black external hard drive, no larger than a deck of cards. She set it on the desk between them.
"This is everything," she said. "Every note I confiscated. Every authorization I processed. Every patient whose file I touched. Names, dates, signatures. Reeve's signature on twenty-three Clinical Urgency forms. Calloway's signature on eleven. The full intake-to-redaction pipeline, documented from the inside."
Elena looked at the drive. It was small enough to disappear into a pocket. It contained four months of documentation from someone who had operated at the center of the system — not as an analyst observing from a distance, but as the person who physically handled the evidence of each redaction.
"Why now?" Elena asked. "Why give this to me?"
Judith's hands returned to their interlocked position. "Because I confiscated a note two weeks ago. Patient 38. A woman named Grace. She wrote three pages. She wrote about her daughter. She wrote about the last morning before the procedure, how she had made her daughter breakfast and her daughter had spilled orange juice on the table and she had laughed. She wrote that she knew the laughter would be taken from her. She wrote that she wanted whoever found the note to know that the orange juice was real."
Judith paused. The fluorescent tube hummed.
"I sealed the note. I labeled it. I put it in the file. And that night, I went home and I couldn't stop seeing the orange juice. I couldn't stop thinking about a mother making breakfast, knowing that the memory of her daughter's mess was about to be erased. And I thought: I did that. I sealed the envelope. I put it in the file. I am the last person who touched that memory before it was destroyed."
Elena said nothing. She waited.
"I'm not brave," Judith said. "I didn't refuse the order. I didn't try to return the note. I did exactly what I was told. But I photographed the note before I sealed it. I have a photograph of every note I confiscated. And I have the intake forms, the authorization forms, the clinical justifications — the paperwork that makes each redaction look legitimate. It's all on the drive."
She pushed the hard drive across the desk. Elena picked it up. It was warm from Judith's hands.
"There's something else," Judith said. "The intake forms have a field called 'Patient Awareness Level.' It's a checkbox — three options: Informed, Unaware, Partially Aware. The clinical standard is that every patient should be Informed. But Reeve's authorizations have a notation in that field. He writes 'U' for Unaware. Every single one. Twenty-three patients. All marked Unaware."
"Unaware," Elena repeated.
"Of the reason for the redaction. The Clinical Urgency provision requires that the patient be informed of the clinical justification. Reeve marks them as Unaware because they were never told why they were being redacted. The justification exists on paper — 'imminent danger to self,' 'acute psychological deterioration' — but the patients never see it. They walk in thinking they're there for a routine session. The authorization says they were informed. The checkbox says they weren't."
"That's perjury on the authorization forms."
"That's twenty-three counts of falsified federal medical records." Judith's voice was steady. "The forms are submitted to the state health authority as part of the clinic's licensing compliance. If the health authority sees the discrepancy between the 'Informed' notation and the 'U' checkbox, the clinic loses its license. If the DOJ sees it, Reeve loses his freedom."
Elena held the drive. Four months of intake documentation. Twenty-three falsified authorizations. Photographs of every confiscated note. And the checkbox — a single letter, 'U' — that proved every Clinical Urgency redaction was performed without patient knowledge.
"Judith," Elena said. "The redaction tomorrow. Can you delay it?"
"There's no mechanism to delay a Clinical Urgency authorization. It's immediate. Once Reeve signs the form, the procedure is scheduled. The only way to stop it is to revoke the authorization, and only the authorizing physician can do that."
"Then we go to Okafor. The clinical director. He can intervene."
"Okafor signed off on the Clinical Urgency protocols. He's part of it." Judith's voice did not waver. "The only person who can stop the authorization is Reeve. And Reeve signed it."
Elena's phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it. "Judith, if you're redacted tomorrow, the documentation on this drive becomes—"
"Becomes useless if I can't testify to it. I know." Judith looked at the hard drive in Elena's hands. "That's why I'm giving it to you now. The drive is the evidence. I'm the witness. If they erase me again, the witness is gone, but the evidence survives. You can match the photographs to the files in the archive. You can compare the checkbox notations to the authorization forms Webb already has. You can establish the pattern from the documents alone."
"But it's stronger with you."
"It's stronger with me." Judith's eyes glistened. She blinked once, hard. "But I can't stop it. I've been here for four days, running through every scenario. There's no exit. The clinic monitors the badge readers. If I try to leave, security intercepts me. If I refuse the procedure, they invoke Clinical Urgency anyway — they sedate me and do it regardless. The only variable is whether I cooperate or resist. And after fourteen months of processing other people's redactions, I'm too tired to resist."
Elena stood. The hard drive was heavy in her hand. "I'm not leaving you here."
"You have to. If they find you here, they'll flag you. You're Subject 0 — you're already on the priority list. Another unauthorized access and Reeve will accelerate your timeline."
"I've been through this before. I know what the timeline looks like."
"Do you?" Judith looked at her. "You've been through three redactions. You've recovered from each one. But a fourth redaction on top of your existing scar tissue — the seam collapse alone would destroy your capacity for autobiographical coherence. You wouldn't just lose memories. You'd lose the ability to form new ones. You'd become a patient who can't remember yesterday. That's what Reeve is scheduling for you if you push him."
The room was very quiet. The fluorescent tube hummed. The brick wall outside the window was motionless.
"I'll be back before tomorrow," Elena said. "Don't leave the building. Don't access any files. Don't give them a reason to accelerate the authorization."
Judith nodded. Her hands remained interlocked on the desk. Elena moved toward the door.
"Dr. Marsh."
Elena turned.
"Patient 38. Grace. The orange juice note. If you find it — if you recover the notes from the archive — give it back to her. Not to her file. To her. She deserves to read it."
Elena looked at Judith Hahn, sitting in a room the size of a closet, wearing a frayed polo shirt, her eyes red, her knuckles white. She was thirty-eight years old. She had been a clinic employee. She had confiscated the notes of twenty-three patients. She had photographed every one. And tomorrow at two PM, she would sit in a chair just like this one and let someone erase the memory of everything she had done.
"I'll find it," Elena said. She left.
She made it back to the elevator before her phone buzzed again. Sana. The message was long — a string of timestamps, credential IDs, and file paths, followed by a two-line summary:
The Gardener algorithm was modified eleven days ago at 11:47 PM using Reeve's personal admin credentials. The modification log shows a manual override of the standard algorithm parameters. The override was not automated. It was entered by hand, keystroke by keystroke, by someone using Reeve's terminal.
Elena read the message as the elevator descended. Below the summary, Sana had included a second finding:
More important: I cross-referenced the modification timestamp with the Gardener flagging log. Judith Hahn was flagged at 12:27 AM — forty minutes after the algorithm was rewritten. But her flagging entry has a notation I haven't seen before. Instead of the standard 'algorithmic flag' notation, it says: MANUAL OVERRIDE — DIRECTIVE.
Elena stopped walking.
Directive from whom?
Sana's reply came in three parts, each arriving a few seconds after the last:
The directive field contains Reeve's credential ID. The same credentials used to rewrite the algorithm. The same terminal. Forty minutes apart — first the algorithm rewrite, then the directive flagging Judith Hahn.
But here's what matters: the directive includes a source reference. It says Judith was flagged because she accessed a specific file. The file path is: PATIENT/RECORD/0/ACTIVE/REDACTION_SCHEDULE.
Elena. She accessed your file. Your active redaction schedule. She opened it, read it, and closed it — and forty minutes later, Reeve personally flagged her and signed the authorization.
Elena stood in the elevator, the doors open, the ground-floor waiting room visible through the glass. Nadia was still seated, watching her phone. The receptionist was still at her desk. The promotional video still played.
Judith Hahn had not been algorithmically flagged. She had been targeted. Because she had accessed Elena's patient record — the record that showed Elena was next on the redaction schedule. Judith had seen the file, understood what it meant, and forty minutes later, Reeve had signed the order to erase her.
Not because the algorithm caught her. Because Reeve decided she had seen too much.
Elena walked out of the elevator and through the waiting room. Nadia stood when she saw her face. The receptionist looked up. Elena did not stop. She pushed through the glass door and into the street.
Nadia caught up at the car. "What happened?"
Elena handed her the phone. Nadia read the messages. Her expression changed — the careful journalist's mask slipping for a moment, replaced by something raw.
"He's not using the algorithm," Nadia said.
"The algorithm is cover. The algorithm flags patients for indirect exposure — reading the news, sharing links. That's the wide net. But the individual targeting — the directives — those come from Reeve. Personally. One by one."
"Judith opened your file."
"And Reeve signed her authorization forty minutes later. Not the algorithm. Him."
Nadia opened the car door. She stood there, one hand on the frame, looking at the clinic building. "Elena. If he's personally signing directives for patients who access your file — anyone who looks at your record, anyone who reads your authorization schedule — he's not just running a program. He's watching you. Specifically. Through the files."
Elena sat in the driver's seat. The hard drive was in her hand. Judith's documentation. Four months of confiscated notes, falsified authorizations, and the 'U' checkbox. And now Sana's evidence: the server logs showing Reeve's hand on the keyboard, the directive flagging Judith because she had dared to look at Elena's file.
"We have the chain," Elena said. "The algorithm rewrite, the directive targeting, the falsified authorizations, the note confiscation. All of it documented. All of it traceable to Reeve."
"But Judith still has twenty-seven hours," Nadia said.
Elena looked at the clinic building. Sixth floor: storage. Third floor: Judith's closet office. The badge readers. The cameras. The procedure scheduled for tomorrow at two PM.
"We need to get her out," Elena said.
"We can't extract her from a secured facility without—"
"Webb. We call Webb. He's a detective. He has authority. If he can get a judge to issue an emergency protective order—"
"On what grounds? Judith hasn't reported a crime. She hasn't filed a complaint. She's a clinic employee scheduled for a medical procedure that she consented to fourteen months ago."
"She didn't consent to this one. Clinical Urgency bypasses consent. That's the whole problem — the procedure is performed without patient agreement. If Judith refuses now, if she revokes—"
"She can't revoke. She told you that. Only the authorizing physician can revoke."
Elena gripped the steering wheel. The logic was a closed loop: Judith could not stop the redaction, the clinic would not stop it, Reeve would not stop it, and the only way to save her was to intervene before the authorization was executed. But intervening required authority, and authority required jurisdiction, and jurisdiction required a crime, and the crime was the authorization itself — a document that, on its face, appeared legal.
"Call Webb," Elena said. "Tell him what we have. The server logs, the directive flagging, the falsified authorizations. Tell him Judith Hahn has documentation that proves twenty-three Clinical Urgency redactions were performed without patient knowledge. Tell him the documentation is in our possession. And tell him Judith's procedure is tomorrow at two PM."
Nadia was already dialing.
Elena set the hard drive on the dashboard. It was warm. Judith's hands. Twenty-three patients. Twenty-three notes. The orange juice on the table, the daughter's laughter, the memory of a morning that someone had sealed in an envelope and filed away.
The phone rang. Webb answered on the second ring.
"Detective. It's Elena. We have evidence. We have a timeline. And we have twenty-seven hours to use both."
She told him everything. The drive. The checkbox. The server logs. The directive flagging. Judith's closet office and her red-rimmed eyes and her interlocked fingers. The procedure scheduled for tomorrow at two PM.
Webb listened. When she finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"I'll call the judge," he said. "Not Callahan — she's federal. I need someone at the state level. A family court judge who can issue an emergency protective order on grounds of involuntary medical procedure." He paused. "It's a long shot. But with the documentation you're describing, I might get a temporary restraining order that halts the procedure pending investigation."
"Twenty-seven hours," Elena said.
"I'll work fast. Send me everything — the server logs, the drive contents, Judith's statement. The more I have, the stronger the application."
"I'm sending it now."
She ended the call. Nadia was already composing the email, attaching Sana's log extractions and photographs of the documents Elena had read. The hard drive sat on the dashboard, its indicator light blinking — four months of documentation, twenty-three falsified authorizations, and a single letter, 'U,' that proved Reeve had lied to the state health authority about every patient he had erased.
Elena started the car. The clinic building receded in the rearview mirror — glass and steel and fluorescent light, a place where people went to forget and never came back the same. Somewhere inside, Judith Hahn was sitting in a room the size of a closet, waiting to be erased for the second time.
Twenty-seven hours.
Elena drove toward the office, the hard drive warm against the dashboard, the evidence piling up like water behind a dam. The dam would hold — for now. But the water was rising, and somewhere above it all, Reeve was watching the levels, calculating the moment when the last barrier would break.
She would not give him that moment. She would take it from him first.