THE FRIDAY TRAIN HOME

"Don't let my father turn this into a rescue," Cece read aloud.

Max stood on the other side of her ticket window. She had called him only after sending a photograph of the note to Detective Shah and receiving instructions to preserve the original. The station had closed; Dale was finishing paperwork in the office, within earshot but politely pretending otherwise.

Max read the message without reaching for it. He stopped at the word rescue and read that sentence again.

"She thinks I'd send people after her," he said.

"You did send people to the station every Friday."

"For me."

"She wouldn't necessarily know the difference."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The broken signal she mentions. Last winter she was stranded here for two hours. I drove over and she told me not to. She said the station clerk had been kinder to her than I had on the phone."

Cece remembered the young woman now: yellow scarf, backpack with a torn zipper, sitting on the floor near a heater while Cece helped stranded passengers charge their phones. She'd given the woman a granola bar and a spare station map. They'd talked about an application for a graduate program in supply-chain ethics. Cece had forgotten her surname.

"She was angry with me before the October argument," Max said.

"Maybe. The part you can do something about is the empty coolers."

"I've never heard about them."

"Then don't start by telling her they're impossible."

Detective Shah called the following morning. Her team was working to verify the letter's source. She asked Cece not to distribute it or contact whoever might have delivered it. Max's attorney had already issued a document-preservation demand inside Corvelli. Those two processes had to remain separate.

Cece went to work. It felt absurd, tapping route codes while her mind returned to one sentence. But an older passenger needed a platform change explained, a teenager needed a refund, and an exhausted mother had dropped a mitten behind the radiator. Someone still had to keep the station running.

At lunch, a woman arrived carrying a canvas bag decorated with a cartoon polar bear. She introduced herself as Dr. Lila Moreno, director of North Harbor Children's Clinic. A transit officer accompanied her to the operations office; she was meeting Shah later and wanted to confirm the location of the old baggage entrance. Dale arranged the authorized visit.

Cece recognized the clinic's name from a donation poster in the waiting room. The clinic ran a program that transported temperature-sensitive medicines to families who lived too far from the central hospital to make daily trips. It had held a holiday fundraiser at the station three years running.

"I'm not asking you to tell me anything private," Lila said when she noticed Cece looking at the polar bear. "But if you witnessed something around the loading area, please make sure it reaches the investigators. Our deliveries started coming with missing contents in September. Everyone kept telling us it was a counting error."

"Did anyone get sick?" Cece asked.

"We had delays in care, and we worked with other providers to get supplies. We're documenting each affected delivery carefully. I don't want to exaggerate what we know. Families are anxious enough."

That measured answer struck Cece harder than an accusation. The clinic staff had spent weeks quietly finding alternate suppliers while somebody somewhere called empty containers an accounting issue.

Max phoned that afternoon. "Warren says the clinic signed receipts confirming delivery."

"Have you asked the clinic?"

"My attorney has. I also asked Warren to step away from the donation program while the records are reviewed. He refused. The board can make the decision tomorrow."

"Does the board listen to you?"

"Usually."

"Then perhaps let them listen to someone else this time."

He let out a weary breath. "You're not interested in making me feel better."

"Not at the expense of finding out what happened."

At home, Esther had watched the station photograph spread through local social media. She laid her phone beside the mashed potatoes. "They say you're seeing a gangster."

"We stood on a sidewalk."

"I can read a photograph, Cece. I'm asking whether you like him."

Cece stared at her plate. "I think he's in trouble."

"That's not what I asked."

"I don't know. He listens sometimes. Other times he talks like he's signing purchase orders."

Esther lifted an eyebrow. "Then he can learn. I don't want you making another man's grief into your full-time job."

"I'm not."

"Good. Your father loved you without asking you to repair him. Remember that part too."

Cece looked toward Peter's photograph. There were days she still resented his insistence that he was fine. She'd spent the final months of his life translating his pain for people he didn't want to trouble. The memory left her determined not to volunteer for a similar assignment again.

On Thursday, the station contractor sent Dale a revised clearance schedule. The work was suspended pending investigation, but Northline wanted the building emptied as soon as the suspension ended. Its representative insisted the stored equipment was temporary and not worth preserving. Dale forwarded the request to the appropriate officials and refused to approve it himself.

Max's board met the same morning. He called Cece afterward from his car, and his voice sounded unfamiliar.

"They voted to put Warren on leave. Four to two. My own chairman told me I was damaging the company by asking questions."

"Were you?"

"Probably. If there's wrongdoing, we've damaged it ourselves."

"That's a better answer."

"Iris would hate how long it took me to find it."

"She might. You can survive that."

The next Friday, Max arrived at 4:00 with no bodyguards on the platform. Marcus stayed outside by the SUV. Max wore his usual white shirt but carried an umbrella of his own. The rain had weakened to mist.

"I thought I'd try this," he said, opening it.

"Revolutionary."

"I'm considering socks tomorrow."

She laughed. The sound startled them both. Max sat on the familiar bench. Cece remained standing because she was on duty, but she let herself stay a minute.

"I won't ask you to sit through every Friday," he said.

"Good. My lunch break is only thirty minutes."

The train arrived. A little girl jumped down and into her grandfather's arms. Someone dropped a bag of oranges. Iris was not among the passengers. Max didn't stare at the doors until they closed. He looked at the platform and breathed.

Then his phone vibrated. Detective Shah had sent a message requesting an immediate meeting with his attorney present. She had verified that Iris wrote the note. It included one line he read twice before showing Cece.

Iris has agreed to meet you. She wants Cecilia there, if Cecilia chooses.

Cece looked at Max. His face held a happiness so fragile she almost turned away from it.