Page 96 of Dominion’s Collar

The silence holds. The question lands exactly where she aimed it, and the aim is flawless.

"More than I should have," I say.

"Good. Then you owe this case every observation you've ever made about him." She turns back to her files. "I'll hold you to that."

The edge in her voice is the same edge that drew me across a crowded floor weeks ago. The fact that it's aimed at me now doesn't make it less attractive. It makes it more dangerous.

The case is laid out. Claire's timeline covers one wall. The counter-investigation occupies another. Luc's booking data and Ezra's corporate trace fill the gaps between them. For years, these pieces existed in separate rooms, separate minds. Now they're in one place, and the picture they form is clear enough to act on.

The plan needs building.

Remy starts it. "How do we get him?"

"Get him to tell me something only Claire's killer would know," Natalie says.

"A correction isn't a confession," Andy says. "He can know things about Claire's death without admitting involvement. Proximity explains a lot."

"Not if the detail was never public." Natalie turns to face him. "The official report ruled accidental death during a scene. It listed the equipment involved but not the room configuration. Not who accessed the scheduling system before Claire's session. Not the specific method of restraint modification."

"So you present the wrong method," I say.

Every head turns.

"You describe Claire's death to Gaudet as part of your research. You get the restraint method wrong. Deliberately. Specifically." I lean forward. "If he corrects you, he's revealing knowledge that wasn't in the report."

Andy shakes his head. "Étienne found her. He saw the room. So did first responders and investigators. That's restricted knowledge, not perpetrator-only. A defense attorney puts Étienne on the stand and argues community gossip."

He's right. The final state of the room isn't exclusive to the killer.

"Then we need the sequence," Natalie says. She's already ahead of the rest of us. "Not what the room looked like when Étienne walked in. What happened before that. How the scene was staged into its final configuration."

"Something only the person who set the stage would know," I say.

"Exactly." Natalie looks at the timeline. "If I describe the staging sequence wrong, and Gaudet corrects me, that's not something he could have learned from finding Claire or hearing about it afterward. That's knowledge he could only have if he was in the room before Étienne arrived."

Andy is quiet for a long moment. "That's perpetrator knowledge. If the detail is genuinely exclusive, and the recording is clean, I can build a case around that."

"The question is whether he'll take the bait," Remy says.

"He will." I know this about Gaudet. The care he takes. The precision of his staging. A man that meticulous about his methods won't sit across from someone describing them wrong. His ego won't tolerate the inaccuracy even if his survival instincts should.

Natalie nods. "I contact him as the true-crime author researching Elysium's history. Established cover. Documented interest. Nothing confrontational."

"Location?" Remy asks.

"I let him choose." Natalie's voice is steady. "If I suggest somewhere, he controls nothing and has every reason to be suspicious. If he picks the terrain, he feels safe. People talk when they feel safe."

"But it gives him a tactical advantage," Cole says.

"It gives him a psychological disadvantage," I say. "Comfort makes people careless. Especially people who've been careful for a long time."

Remy considers this. "We survey whatever place he picks. Cole maps the space. Ezra and Luc handle recording and communication. Contingency plans for every exit we find."

"And the ones we don't find?" Cole asks.

"That's why we build redundancy into the recording," Luc says. "Primary transmitter. Local backup. If one fails, the other captures."

Andy leans back. "Clean audio. Uninterrupted. Properly authenticated. Don't hand a defense attorney an evidentiary chain opening."