Page 67 of Innocent Until Proven Witch

"What?"

"You have something ready."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She pulls out a folder, places it on the table.

I stare at it, then at her, then back at the folder. The movement feels suspiciously practiced. "How did you get that?"

Iris folds her arms. "Trade secrets."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

I exhale heavily. She smiles and for reasons I can't explain, that worries me more than if she'd refused.

I open the folder. The smile immediately disappears. Account records. Trade licenses. Shipping manifests. Financial transfers. Pages and pages of them. Aldric's name appears repeatedly, and so do several companies. Most are familiar. Some aren't.

I begin reading. The deeper I go, the more focused I become. The archive slowly disappears, the conversations around us fade, and the room narrows to numbers, names, dates, patterns. Something sits beneath all of it. I can feel it. A shape hidden in the records, waiting.

Iris remains silent. For once. She knows better than to interrupt.

Eventually I stop. A particular name catches my attention. I flip backward, then forward, then backward again. Interesting. Very interesting.

I pull another document closer, then another. The same names appear repeatedly. Not Aldric. The fishermen.

My pulse quickens. I continue searching.

"No."

Iris looks up. "What?"

I barely hear her. The records spread across the table. Trade agreements. Export permits. Market assignments. Everything suddenly aligns.

I pull one document from the pile. The dates match. Too closely. Much too closely. A fisherman secures an independent trade route. Months later he disappears. A merchant begins exporting outside Aldric's market network. Not long afterward, an accident occurs at sea. Another name. Another route. Another disappearance.

My stomach tightens. The pattern repeats. Again. And again. And again.

Iris sees the expression on my face. "What did you find?"

I slide the papers toward her. She studies them, her frown deepening, then deepening again.

"Oh."

Exactly. Oh.

The room feels colder. I point at the records. "Look at who they are."

Iris scans the names. Her eyes widen slightly. "Independent operators."

I nod. "Every single one."

The thought settles heavily between us. These aren't random victims. They never were. The missing fishermen all share something. Competition. Not against each other. Against Aldric.

Aldric's market controls most harbor trade, most exports, most contracts. The men who vanished? They worked outside his system. Built their own networks. Made their own deals.

Iris slowly lowers the documents. "You're thinking this isn't about storms."

I lean back. The answer comes immediately. "It was never about storms."