✆

[ (Read the file, haven't you? that's what he'd said and Dr. Akker had just shrugged with one of her shoulders, as if twelve dead men hadn't been laid out there, one after the other, page after page, like some morbid a la carte. I don't read files, Staff Sargarent, I read people. And what I read from you is, you're not finished yet.)

In the silence that follows, Akker's chair squeaks again and there's a faint whispering sound of ballpoint pen on paper. (He implies leave it to me and he will, but Akker hasn't gotten where she is and kept her position by not being ahead of the ball at all times. Eventually: ] Thanks.

[ A beat, then: ] So. What's the official tally? [ Circling back to an earlier question of how are you sleeping. ]