Page 124 of Split Decision

I let that admission sink in.

"And you came in through me," I say. Not accusing. Naming.

"Yes."

"Why through me?"

She's quiet for a moment. When she speaks, her voice is even. "Because you're the access point with the least resistance. You're logical, you're reasonable, youhave influence over both of them. If I'd approached Luke directly, he would have been resistant from the start." She pauses. "That's an honest answer."

It is. An uncomfortably honest answer—the kind meant to signal candor without actually engaging the question underneath.

The underlying question is notwhy you and not Luke.

The underlying question iswhy at all.Who sent you? What were you looking for? What this situation is to you beyond a crisis management engagement?

I don't ask it.

"And the recommendations," I say. "The ones that pulled them apart."

"Were strategically sound," she says. "The Commission file closed, Brandon. His license is safe. That was real."

"I know."

"The separation strategy?—"

"I'm not saying it didn't work," I say. "I'm saying I'm trying to understand who it worked for."

The room is quiet.

Her expression doesn't change—which is the thing about Marin that I have never fully resolved. When someonereceives a hard question, their face usually does something. Even controlled people, even people trained in steadiness—something moves. Marin's face at this moment is exactly the same as Marin's face when she's telling me something pleasant.

"It worked for them," she says.

"Okay," I say.

We finish our tea.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" I say.

She looks at me.

"Do you have any other clients right now who have an interest in this situation? In Andi's situation specifically?"

A pause.

This one is longer than the others. Not because she's deciding whether to answer. Because she's deciding what the answer is, which is a different kind of pause entirely.

"No current clients," she says. "My involvement here has been through you."

Through you. Notfor you.

"Okay," I say.

I stand. I put on my jacket, careful of the wrist. She walks me to the door—and here is the thing, here is thespecific thing that I carry out into the hallway with me and into the elevator and into the parking garage: she watches me put on my jacket with the specific attention of someone tracking a physical limitation, and she doesn't say anything about it, and that silence lands differently than it would have a week ago.

She was at the hospital. She knows about the wrist.

She said nothing about it just now.