She had not come alone, technically. 40 federal tactical personnel were staged in three unmarked vehicles in a parking garage two blocks east, monitoring an encrypted frequency and waiting for a single signal.
But in the lobby right now, she was alone. And she was patient. And she watched the room with total stillness.
The front doors banged open at 10:28 with enough force to rattle the frosted glass panels on either side.
Officer Dale Pruitt walked in like he owned the planet.
He was a big man. Wide across the shoulders, thick through the neck, with the permanently flushed face of someone whose blood pressure had been a medical concern for at least a decade.
His uniform was regulation, but he wore it with a casualness that read more like contempt. His badge was crooked. He was chewing something.
His eyes swept the lobby with the flat, proprietary stare of a man who had never, in his professional life, encountered a situation that made him feel small.
Until this moment, he hadn't.
His gaze landed on Josephine and stayed there.
Pruitt was a 12-year veteran of the Harwick County Sheriff's Department, with a disciplinary file that read like a catalog of near misses. Excessive force complaints. A racial harassment allegation buried by the union. Two civil suits quietly settled out of court, with confidentiality agreements funded by taxpayers who would never know why.
He had survived all of it because Sheriff Beaumont liked men who didn't ask questions, and because the town's district attorney owed the department more favors than he could count.
He crossed the lobby in 11 steps, his boots hitting the tile with the deliberate weight of a man making a statement.
"Hey."
He stopped two feet from Josephine's chair and looked down at her with a particular brand of aggression that doesn't need a reason to exist.
"You've been sitting here a while. What's your business?"
Josephine looked up at him with an expression of complete neutrality. She had read dangerous men in dark rooms on four continents. Dale Pruitt was not complicated. He was a pressure cooker with a broken gauge.
"I have an appointment with Sheriff Beaumont," she said. Her voice was even and unhurried. "I checked in at the front desk. I'm waiting."
"Who made the appointment?"
"The appointment was coordinated through the department's administrative office. I can provide the confirmation number, if that would be helpful."
Pruitt's jaw shifted.
Something about her composure irritated him in a way he couldn't have articulated if asked. She wasn't afraid. She wasn't apologetic. She was just still.