The realization arrived quietly.
Not with the drama of a crisis — no single event, no devastating phone call, no moment he could point to afterward and say that was when he understood. It assembled itself over the course of a Tuesday morning, piece by piece, the way certain truths assembled themselves when you'd been avoiding them long enough that they stopped waiting for permission.
Ray sat in his office and looked at the city and let it assemble.
He started with the facts.
