Two additional city officers and an investigator had arrived separately to assist Bennett.

Their decisions belonged to their own chain of responsibility.

“General Cole,” Hayes said quietly when he found me.

David, standing beyond the waiting-area doors, heard him.

“General?”

I had removed my coat in Clara’s room.

The two stars of my major general’s rank were visible now, along with the ribbons Arthur had never bothered to ask about.

The expression on David’s face changed.