The room smells like gun oil and old paper.

Maps are pinned to the walls — overlapping, stabbed through with red string and knife points. Case files gutted across a folding table. Pill bottles tipped on their sides. A weapons locker stands open, inventory half-assembled like he’s mid-war.

The door barely clicks shut behind her before he moves.

She feels him before she sees him. A violent shove, her back slams into the wall, air punched from her lungs. His hand clamps around her throat, not squeezing yet, just claiming space. The other presses a pistol firm against her ribs.

Frank’s bigger than she remembers. Broader through the shoulders. Hair longer now, beard thicker. There’s something feral in the way he breathes. Not wild, just coiled. Like he lives permanently at the edge of violence.

His eyes lock on hers. Recognition hits.

The pressure doesn’t vanish, but it shifts. The gun lowers first. Then the weight of him eases back a fraction. He releases her like he’s choosing to, not because he has to.

“Door was locked,” he says, voice gravel dragged over concrete.

She didn’t respond, just watched him as if waiting for another blow. It never came. It wouldn’t.

She holds up the evidence bag between them. The brass casing swings slightly inside the plastic. The skull stamped into it catches the lamplight.

Frank’s eyes flick to it, but he doesn’t look surprised. “Yeah,” he says flatly. “Seen it.” He turns away from her, crossing to the table and leaning back against the cool metal, arms crossed over his chest. Dark eyes followed as her eyes flickered around the room, taking it all in.