And now you're doing this. You need housing. Walter shook his head. One day you're going to let somebody do something for you. Naomi smiled.
Maybe. They sat together beneath the weak lobby light while Naomi helped him through the emergency housing forms one line at a time. Upstairs, Nia watched from the window. She thought about the coin, the training. The years Naomi had spent helping people who had no idea what she had once done and about how little any of that changed the way strangers judged her clothes.
By the time Naomi came back upstairs, Nia had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. Her phone buzzed beside her hand. Naomi picked it up. Unknown number. She hesitated.
Then the screen lit again. Come tomorrow and withdraw the complaint. A second message appeared. Or what happened online gets worse. Naomi's face hardened.
Nia woke. What? Naomi turned the phone toward her. Nia read both messages. The color left her face.
You're not going, Naomi said. Nia sat up. I have to retrieve the records for the appeal. Then we do it another way. They're mine.
Nia. I am not letting them scare me out of my own evidence. Naomi looked at her sister for a long time. Then I go with you. No. That's not negotiable.
It is. Naomi's eyes narrowed. Nia reached for the phone. If you walk in beside me, Trevor gets exactly what he wants. What?
A new story. She stood. Not Nia reported harassment. Nia brought backup. Naomi said nothing.
I need to do this myself. You don't need to prove anything. I know. Nia's voice softened. That's why I'm going.
Naomi hated the answer because she understood it. Call me the second anything feels wrong. I will. Nia picked up the appeal folder. Naomi's eyes moved to the coin still resting on the table.
Then to her sister. Neither of them knew the next morning would bring the coin, the hidden camera, and Naomi's buried past into the same place. And Nia did not tell Naomi one final thing before going to bed. She had already decided to return to Wellington alone. Morning came gray and cold.
By seven, rain had started again, ticking against the apartment windows and running in thin lines down the fire escape. Naomi was still asleep when Nia dressed quietly, packed the appeal folder into her repaired canvas bag and slipped out before the city had fully brightened. She told herself it would be simple. Get to Wellington, retrieve the records, leave, no confrontation, no argument, no scene. The first bus smelled of wet coats and coffee.
The second carried her past glass office towers and landscaped medians toward the polished stone world that had suspended her the day before. When Wellington came into view, Nia tightened her grip on the folder. The athletic center was already open. Rainwater shone across the service courtyard behind it. She entered through the side corridor because it was closer to the records office.