The name Damian reached was someone he had trusted years ago.
Someone who had known him before the careful version of himself existed.
Before the exits.
Before the patches.
Before he had built the particular architecture of a life designed to be easy to leave and hard to find.
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He spent the day being sure.
Not because he wanted to be wrong — he had learned a long time ago that wanting to be wrong about a thing didn't change whether you were right about it.
Because being sure mattered.
Because going to Kendrick with a name meant something happening to the person attached to that name, and he needed to know — specifically, verifiably — that he had the right one.
He went through his memory the way he went through archive documents.
Methodically.
Backward from the most recent time the person had been in his apartment to the first.
Who knew. When they knew it. Whether they had reason to talk.
The answer assembled itself slowly.
And unhappily.
