She inhaled, a decisive, cold thing. “Then we make them listen.”
The hallway door clicked. He held his breath until it felt like a thing he could hold. Footsteps approached, careful and measured. The lamp washed the figure in gold as it entered — not an intruder, not yet. A woman with a rain-dark coat, eyes hard with news and softer beneath. She clutched an envelope to her chest as if it contained a beating thing.
A distant siren slid sideways through the rain. He leaned forward. “We’ve got sixty seconds.”