I did not comfort him.

But I understood that his fear had a floor, the way Rufus’s had, the way even Deirdre’s finally did — that there was a thing so much worse than being afraid that it made the afraid ones brave.

Waylon had already, quietly, begun handing the ledgers to the district attorney’s office; the case against Dax was no longer a widow’s suspicion but a stack of subpoenaed paper.

And that, I would learn, was exactly why Dax decided he could not wait.