“She’s been watching us,” Danny says.

Ray doesn’t look up. “How long.”

“Since Jacob walked in with that binder of his.” He fiddles with his coffee cup. “Looks like he’s going to a dissertation defense. But he’s not dressed like an attorney.”

Jacob looks up. “You think I’d leave all this in my apartment?”

“I’m just saying it’s not subtle Jacob.”

“Neither is what’s happening tonight, Danny.” He looks at the three men sitting with him. “None of this is what I’d call normal.”

Walter looks at the woman at the counter. Looks down into his cup. “She hasn’t decided yet.”

“Decided what, exactly?” Danny asks.

“Whether we’re worth a phone call.”

Ray taps his pen on the notebook. “Okay, Danny. Tonight. Walk me through it. All of it. Don’t leave anything out.”

“You want a debrief? Here? Right now?”

“I want to know what you saw.”

Danny scrapes at the table with his thumbnail. Shows a gap between his thumb and forefinger, never looking up. “I was this close. Close enough that when they.” He stops. “I didn’t do anything. I should have done something.” He brings his fist down on the table. Softly. Not wanting to draw attention. “I had it on me. I just. I couldn’t.”

“None of us did.” Ray’s voice is flat.

“But I was the closest.” Final. Not looking for absolution.

Jacob leans forward. “What did his face look like. When they took him. Specifically.”

“Why.”

“Because I need to know if he was afraid.”

Danny looks at Jacob for a long moment.

“No.” He sips his coffee, pretending it’s still hot. “That’s the thing I can’t get past. He looked like a man who knew exactly where he was going. Already made his peace with it.” He sets the cup down. “Like he was just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.”

Jacob opens the binder. Finds the page. Points.

Danny looks at it. “What is this.”

“Written seven hundred years ago. Third paragraph. Read it.”

Danny’s lips move in a whisper. His eyes scan it again.

“Okay,” he says. Exhales.

“Right?” Jacob asks.

Ray looks between them. “And?”

“He was led like a lamb,” Jacob says quietly. “That’s what it says. Seven hundred years ago somebody wrote he was led like a lamb and he did not open his mouth.” He closes the binder. “I’ve read that passage a thousand times. Dad made me memorize it.” Full stop. “I always thought I understood it.” He looks at Danny. “I didn’t. Not until tonight.”

Walter picks up his cup. Sets it down. “I told him once,” he says. Everyone waits. “I said in the beginning was the Word. You know how he’d get that look?”

The other three men nod.

“He smiled. Said yes. And the Word got very tired sometimes.”

The table goes quiet.

The kid by the door is still scrolling.

The woman at the counter has her phone in her hand.

“Ray,” Danny says.

“I know. I saw her. And the kid.”

Ray looks at his notebook. “I saw her this morning. His mother. Asked if she was scared. She took my hand, smiled, tears filling her eyes. Said it doesn’t end here.” He pauses. “There’s a look someone gets when you hand them clean lab results. She had that look. Like she’d already seen them.”

Danny stares at him. “You believe that?”

Ray picks at the edge of his notebook. The quiet stretches.

“I believe her the way I trust an X-ray,” he says. “I don’t always like what I see. But I’ve never been wrong about what it shows me.”

The woman looks up from her phone. Meets Danny’s eyes. Holds it. Goes back to scrolling.

Then she gets up and leaves the counter.

Nobody speaks.

They don’t know where she went.

“We don’t have long,” Danny says. “Ten minutes. Maybe less.”

“Then we start with Bethlehem,” Jacob says. Already turning pages. The G-2 out, uncapped, ready.

“Why does it always start with Bethlehem,” Danny says.

Jacob almost smiles. First time all night.

“Because that’s where I knew,” he says. “I looked at this kid, this baby, and every thread I’d been following for thirty years pulled tight at the same moment and I thought. It’s him. It’s actually him.” He shakes his head. “I was so scared I couldn’t move. And so happy I couldn’t breathe. Both at the same time.” He looks up. “I didn’t know you could feel both at the same time.”

“You can,” Danny says quietly. Like he’s been carrying that for three years.

Walter nods once.

Ray uncaps his pen.

“Okay,” he says. “From Bethlehem.”

Outside the city pretends to sleep.

The light flickers and holds.

Ten minutes.

It feels like enough.

It has to be.