Page 43 of Crosscurrent

But it had.

Somewhere between the bakery window and Karl’s bait shop, the threat had stopped circling.

Now it was making sure they knew it was there.

15

Late Saturday morning in the basement headquarters looked less like a covert operations center and more like a hostage situation organized by caffeine addicts.

Laptops glowed across the conference table. Half-drained coffee cups occupied every flat surface. Somebody, probably Wade, had lined up protein bars beside the tactical maps.

And for the last ten minutes, nobody had accomplished a single useful thing.

Because Piper’s SAT scores would post any second.

Piper sat at the center workstation hunched over the keyboard with the rigid concentration of someone attempting to defuse a bomb manually.

Refresh.

Refresh.

Refresh.

Cara leaned against the storage shelves at the back of the room and watched the collective unraveling.

Wade stood at Piper’s shoulder with his arms crossed, posture locked down tight enough to suggest he was prepared to physically fight the College Board if events took a negative turn.

Tom occupied the rolling chair beside Piper, knees bouncing nonstop, glasses sliding crooked as he leaned so close to the monitor he was practically inside the portal.

Owen stood nearby holding Agent awkwardly against one shoulder, cardigan misbuttoned, looking deeply concerned.

Skye sat cross-legged on the workbench watching the screen with the same flat operational focus she brought to surveillance footage and exit routes. To Skye, apparently, standardized testing and counter-surveillance occupied roughly equal tactical importance.

Honestly, Cara respected the consistency.

Outside the bakery walls, danger kept tightening in slow, careful circles around Haven Cove.

But down here a teenager was waiting to find out whether her future had just cracked open.

And every adult in the room cared too much not to pretend otherwise.

Cara remembered taking tests under borrowed names while her father ran scams three counties over.

Nobody had hovered at her shoulder.

Nobody had worried on her behalf.

No one had ever looked at her future like it mattered.

Watching Tom panic in real time over a standardized test score felt faintly unreal.

Watching Wade do it felt impossible.

Gabe leaned near the monitor wall with a mug of coffee he’d forgotten to drink. Exhaustion still shadowed his face from the last twenty-four hours, but something softer lived underneath it now.

Contentment, maybe. Like standing in this ridiculous basement full of anxious weirdos felt more natural to him than anywhere else.

Cara had not seen that coming either.