The receipt covered most of the screen, but not the thin red line showing the call was active.
The button camera near my collar had a tiny dull finish designed to look cheap.
It was not cheap.
It was designed for rooms where pretending to be ordinary was safer than announcing importance.
In a secure room far from that kitchen, people were watching.
Not all of them knew the whole history.
They did not know about the hallway when I was nineteen.
They did not know about Linda looking at the floor.
They did not know that Silas once told me no one would believe a girl like me over a man in uniform.
But they understood the present.
A local officer had restrained and threatened a United States general on a live classified line.
The fact was clean.
The response would be cleaner.
Silas pressed harder.
“I could pull the trigger right now and tell the department you reached for my weapon,” he said. “Linda will testify. The neighbors will believe me.”
