Page 198 of Wild Card 13

I frowned at the second monitor, where the postgame travel confirmation sat in my inbox beneath a message from legal and two follow-ups from team services. “Why do you know that?”

“Because Northbend has one hockey team and seven forms of local news, all of which appear on my phone whether I ask for them or not. Also, Mrs. Delaney came into the store today and announced that Buzz had two assists.”

I clicked into Charlotte’s latest email instead of answering. It had arrived at 9:43 p.m., because apparently spite kept the same hours I did.

The subject line read:

Formal Notice Regarding Hostile Work Environment.

The body was longer than it needed to be and less effective than Charlotte probably thought it was. She had named my father. Sarah. Me. The organization. She had used phrases like targeted professional exclusion and retaliatory restructuring and ongoing pattern of intimidation, all of which sounded very impressive until lined up beside the documentation she had personally created by forwarding confidential communications to her private account, withholding event materials, and misrepresenting sponsor access.

It would go to legal in the morning.

It was not catastrophic.

It was not even particularly surprising.

Charlotte had always understood the power of making a mess in the doorway while leaving a room.

Still, my name sat there in her email like something touched with a dirty hand.

“Luce,” Naomi’s voice came into my ear.

I blinked, realizing I had stopped moving. “I’m fine.” I exhaled through my nose and adjusted the edge of the legal pad until it lined up with my keyboard. Then I nudged the takeout container half an inch to the left because it was too close to the printed travel manifest. “Charlotte is threatening hostile workplace claims.”

Naomi went quiet for one beat. Not long enough to become dramatic. Just long enough to become careful. “Is that serious?”

“It is a problem,” I allowed. “But not an unmanageable one. We have documentation. HR has documentation. Legal has documentation. Charlotte also chose to put several claims in writing that are, at best, creatively related to reality.”

“At best,” Naomi repeated.

“She is angry. She wants the organization to spend time responding to her anger.”

“And you are volunteering as tribute?”

“I am organizing the record.”

“At midnight.”

“The timestamp does not change the nature of the task.”

“The timestamp absolutely changes the nature of the task. During business hours, it’s your job. At midnight, it’s called avoidance wearing a blazer.”

Dottie’s ear twitched from her bed.

A laugh moved through me strangely. Yesterday morning, I had been sitting in a rooftop igloo with Bea, Freya, and Lo while snow softened Northbend around us and chocolate cake appeared like a blessing. I had said yes to being a bridesmaid. I had let myself be pulled into a hug that had smelled like tea, sugar, perfume, and the kind of family that chose you out loud.

For one dangerous blink in time, my life had felt full in a way I did not know where to put.

Now I was back beneath fluorescent office light after midnight, filing hostile-workplace threats from a woman who had once smiled at me over conference tables and taught me, accidentally, how quickly professional warmth could become a weapon.

On my second monitor, the team travel tracker had already updated from in transit to completed. The charter had landed forty minutes ago. The staff transportation log showed the last car service confirmed.Most of the players would be home soon, or close to it, moving through the private terminal and back into their own lives with the strange efficiency of professional athletes who could cross time zones, win a game, and still complain about recovery schedules before bed.

The equipment staff would handle the bulk of the gear. Bags, trunks, sticks, laundry, medical supplies. Nothing about road travel was as casual as fans imagined. There were manifests and timing windows and staff who knew exactly which items needed to be unloaded tonight and which could wait until morning. The team did not simply spill back into Talon Arena like a high school bus trip with duffels and vending-machine trash.

Talon Arena after midnight was not empty. Buildings like this never were. They had too many systems, too many people whose work happened after the lights came down, too many invisible hands keeping the machine ready for morning.

The glass wall of my office reflected me back at myself in fragments. Computer glow over glasses. Pale sweater. One hand resting beside a legal folder. A water bottle. The green edge of Dottie’s leash looped over the arm of the chair opposite my desk, where I had dropped it hours ago after her last walk.