The room had one more line in it now and the map felt it.
Dani had a place.
Five lines where there'd been four, the new one pulled in off the side where it had sat for weeks.
Five lines, and then there was Joan.
Joan didn't read on the map at all.
◆◆◆◆
She came by in the evening the way she'd been coming by since she stopped being the Bureau.
No badge.
She'd burned the badge to stand on his side of this.
She came up the stairs with a folder under her arm, out of habit more than need, and she sat down across from him without being asked.
"The cold patch," Joan said. "On the mole."
"Still cold but not spreading."
Joan nodded.
She put the folder on the table and didn't open it.
She'd done that a few times now, brought the folder, set it down, left it shut.
He'd started to understand the folder was a thing she held so her hands had something to do while she decided whether to say the real thing.
She was deciding now.
