Page 51 of Crosscurrent

She was going to be trouble. Gabe meant that entirely as a compliment.

Skye had unfolded herself from the inversion and was now performing controlled pistol squats at the near end of the conference table, fingertips resting lightly on the oak surface for balance, one rep and then another, completely unbothered by the room. David watched her for a moment. Gabe didn’t comment.

The team filtered in — Cara from the kitchen stairs, Wade from the back room. Reagan’s La Marzocco was already running, filling the air with the sharp, warm scent of freshly pulled espresso. David turned to Cara with the expression he used when he was genuinely glad to see someone and had also identified an angle. “Cara. I want you to know that I fully support every choice this man has made in the last four months.”

“He told me it was a lateral move,” Cara said.

“I said no such thing.”

“He implied it,” David said. “Strongly. On the phone. Multiple times.”

This was David’s first time back in Haven Cove since the kidnapping. Neptune operatives had pulled him off a trail outside town and Cara and Gabe and Gabe’s contacts with the Oregon State Police had gotten him out. Whatever his brother felt coming back here, David wasn’t showing it. He wouldn’t. He had the journalist’s version of the same control Cara had — the face that stayed where you put it while the real work happened somewhere else. But Gabe caught the way he’d checked the stairwell when they came in. Just once. Quick. Like a man confirming a fact.

He’d had eleven months to stop seeing it. Gabe had never asked if he had.

They settled at the conference table. David opened his bag. “So, the Coastal Heritage Trust.” He laid a folder on the table. “I’ve been on their financials since February. The grant routing you already flagged — consistent with what I found. But there’s a layer underneath.” He tapped the folder. “Oregon state official. Grants oversight division. Payments from three accounts that trace, through two shells, to Neptune-adjacent structures. Nothing prosecutable — the shells are clean enough and the amounts are distributed across eighteen months — but the pattern is unambiguous to anyone who knows what Neptune’s money moves look like.”

Wade said, “Names?”

“Not until I have more.” David looked at him steadily. “I don’t put names in rooms until they’re confirmed. When I have enough, you’ll have it.”

A beat. Wade held the look for a moment, then nodded once. “Copy that.”

Skye slid a folder across the table before anyone asked. She’d been seated for approximately three minutes and had one foot up on her chair, elbow on her knee. But the comparison had been done before they sat down — Gabe had seen it in the stillness she’d had since David started talking. The math was already finished.

“Shadow List financial structure against Coastal Heritage routing.” She tapped the top page. “No direct name match. Pattern match.” Flat, factual, no editorial. “Same architecture. Different shell layer. Neptune designed both.”

David studied the pages. “Consistent with what I found.”

Sophie set a second folder on the table — David’s source documentation, organized by account and date. She didn’t wait to be asked. She’d anticipated the moment by roughly thirty seconds. Tom glanced at her. She didn’t notice.

Wade looked at the combined materials for a long moment. When he spoke it was quiet and without preamble. “Neptune isn’t protecting offshore assets with this. They’re protecting infrastructure. Any state-level action on the Shadow List witnesses has to be considered potentially compromised until we know who else is on the payroll.”

Gabe looked at the table. The Shadow List fragments. The financial comparison. David’s folder and Sophie’s documentation laid side by side like an anatomy of something that had been growing in the dark for years. He thought about the Coastal Heritage Trust and twenty-three million dollars, and a small coastal town selected on purpose. He thought about fifty people living under names they hadn’t been born with, going about their lives without knowing how thin the margin was.

The more they dug, the more there was.

He didn’t say it. He didn’t need to.

Cara had gone still across the table, and Tom had already pulled up a third screen, and Skye was back on her feet without anyone noticing the transition, standing now with the Shadow List printout in her hand.

Neptune knew Skye existed. They almost certainly knew Owen existed. They knew the team had the USB.

And they’d be coming for it.

Soon.

Tom leaned forward. The third screen had been cycling through the shell payment records while they talked, and something had snagged — Gabe could tell by the way Tom’s hand went still on the mouse. “The most recent shell payment. Last week.” He zoomed the display. “It’s not a standard routing marker. The structure is different — it’s an activation signal. Someone at the Neptune-adjacent account authorized a field deployment.”

His face paled. “Active operational. Pacific Northwest. Six days ago.”

No one spoke.

Gabe watched Skye.

She didn’t move. That was the tell. Not reaction, but the specific quality of stillness that meant her math had just produced an answer she’d been afraid of.

“The Inn,” she said. Quiet. Eyes on the table. “When you checked in, did you notice anyone ahead of you at the front desk?”