Friday after school, and I'm sprawled on the floor of the Music Hall's main room with my laptop, three different browser tabs open, and the growing suspicion that being a detective is actually way more boring than Liberty Belle made it look.

  Tasha's sitting cross-legged on one of the newer couches - the one that doesn't have a spring trying to escape through the cushion - with her own laptop balanced on her knees. She's got her hair pulled back in a big curly ponytail, glasses sliding down her nose as she squints at whatever database she's currently mining for information. There's a bag of chips between us, mostly empty, and my phone is playing some playlist on shuffle that I'm not really paying attention to.

  We've been at this for two hours.

  "Okay," I say, sitting up and immediately regretting it as my ribs protest. Still sore. Still recovering. Still being reminded that getting electrocuted sucks. "What do we actually know versus what do we think we know?"

  Tasha doesn't look up from her screen. "In general, or about this specifically?"

  "Specifically. Silverstein, Crescent, all of it."

  She reaches for the notebook beside her - actual paper, because Tasha's one of those people who retains information better when she writes it physically. I respect it even if I don't understand it. "Okay. Facts: Councilman Silverstein is Republican, represents South Philly, sits on the Business and Economic Development committee. He's been in office for six years. Clean record, no scandals, pretty standard conservative voting pattern."

  "Boring," I contribute.

  "Extremely boring," she agrees. "Which is why it's weird that he keeps showing up at Crescent. Nina mentioned him specifically - said he goes upstairs with Maya Richardson and doesn't come back down for hours."

  "I mean, she said his name with a list that was basically 'and others'. Is that because he's important, or because he's a city councilperson and she was just listing off names we'd recognize?" I ask, while my hands work sort of automatically.

  "That's not illegal," Tasha points out. "Politician goes to nightclub. So what?"

  "Yeah, but it's a Kingdom front. We know that."

  "We know that. But we can't prove it. And even if we could, going to a criminal front isn't a crime if you don't know it's a criminal front." She pushes her glasses up. "We need something that connects him to Kingdom operations, not just the location."

  I flop back down, staring at the ceiling. The water stain in the corner looks like a duck. Or maybe a rabbit. It's one of those things that changes depending on how you look at it. "What about campaign donations?"

  "I've been going through those." Tasha types something. "He gets money from a lot of local businesses, a bunch of individual donors, some PACs. Pretty standard. But..." She trails off, clicking through something. "There are a few LLCs that donated to his last campaign. Nothing huge - under the reporting threshold for detailed disclosure. But the names are weird."

  "Weird how?"

  "Like they're made up. 'Delaware Holdings Group.' 'Keystone Business Solutions.' 'Liberty Services LLC.' Super generic, could be anything." More typing. "I tried looking them up and they're registered in Delaware, which makes sense for tax reasons, but I can't find any actual business operations. No websites, no employees listed anywhere, nothing."

  I sit up again, more carefully this time. "Shell companies?"

  "Maybe? Or just really boring legitimate businesses that don't have a web presence. It's hard to tell." She frowns at her screen. "The thing is, none of these show up in Jordan's old research from last spring. When we were tracking Kingdom fronts, these names weren't on our list."

  "So either they're new, or they're not Kingdom related."

  "Right."

  I grab another chip, thinking. Jordan was good at this stuff - way better than either of us. They had that brain that could see patterns in data that normal people just miss. Tasha's smart, probably smarter than me academically, but she's not a wizkid. She's just thorough and patient, which is arguably more useful for this kind of work but definitely slower.

  "What about the liquor license?" I ask. "For Crescent. That's public record, right?"

  Tasha brightens. "Oh, good call. Hold on." She navigates to what I assume is the city's licensing database - I can see her typing in search terms, clicking through pages. I go back to my forum tab, scrolling through posts about alleged Kingdom sightings and trying to separate legitimate information from people just making shit up for attention. It's like, a name that you know if you're Plugged In. But otherwise people are like. Kingdom who? How reliable do you think the Mafia Watch 2000 forums are, buddy?

  "Sam."

  Tasha's voice has that tone - the one that means she found something.

  I abandon the forums immediately, crawling over to look at her laptop. She's got the city's business licensing page pulled up, Crescent's liquor license displayed in all its bureaucratic glory.

  "Look at the approval signature," she says, pointing.

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  I squint at the screen. "Councilman David Silverstein, Third District." I look at her. "Okay, and?"

  "Crescent is in Center City East. That's not the Third District. That's the Fifth," she points out.

  "Why would a South Philly councilman be signing off on a liquor license outside his district?" I ask slowly. "God, I sound like my Dad."

  Tasha's already typing again, pulling up more records. "Maybe he's on the licensing board? Some kind of citywide authority?" She navigates through the city council's committee assignments. "No. He's not on any licensing oversight. He shouldn't have any authority over businesses outside his district."

  "So why did he sign it?"

  "That's the question." She clicks back to Crescent's license. "And look at the date - approved in three weeks. Most liquor licenses take three to six months. This got fast-tracked."

  I'm standing now, pacing, my brain doing that thing where it makes connections faster than I can articulate them. "Okay. Okay, so Silverstein signed a license he shouldn't have authority over, for a business that we know is a Kingdom front, and he got it approved way faster than normal. That's not coincidental."

  "It's not proof of anything illegal," Tasha cautions, but she's excited too. I can tell. "But it's definitely suspicious. It shows he's using his position to help Crescent specifically."

  "Can you check other licenses? See if there's a pattern?"

  She's already doing it. Her fingers fly across the keyboard - Tasha types way faster than I do, something about piano lessons as a kid giving her good finger dexterity. She pulls up a spreadsheet view of liquor licenses, filters by approving signature.

  "He's signed... a lot," she says after a moment. "Like, way more than other council members. Most of them only sign for businesses in their own district, occasionally neighboring ones if there's overlap. But Silverstein has signed licenses all over the city. And..." She clicks into a few of them. "Several of these got approved really fast. Three weeks, four weeks, one month. All of them under the normal timeframe."

  "Any of them places we know are Kingdom fronts?"

  "I'd have to cross-reference with Jordan's old list. Hold on." She opens another tab, pulling up the document we've all been maintaining since last year - known and suspected Kingdom properties. It's kind of depressing how long it's gotten.

  "It's weird to me how it feels like we just lucked onto this because of what Nina said. Like, if I hadn't reached out..." I point out.

  "If you hadn't been in the same therapy group as her, you mean. But also, I think looking into people who sign the papers for shady business is normal investigative work. We would've gotten here eventually," Tasha points out back, smothering my cynicism. "The path we took is just... the one that happened on our lap."

  I go back to my laptop, searching for news articles about Crescent. The Inquirer has covered it a few times - it's popular, trendy, the kind of place that gets mentioned in the lifestyle section. "See and Be Seen: Crescent Nightclub Attracts City's Elite." There's photos from the opening, from various events. I recognize some faces - local celebrities, musicians, a few politicians.

  And there, in the background of one photo from a fundraiser: Maya Richardson and David Silverstein, talking near the bar.

  "Found them together," I call out. "Inquirer article from eight months ago. Some charity thing at Crescent."

  "That's still not illegal," Tasha says, but she sounds less certain now. "Politicians go to fundraisers. Maya's a public figure, and they're both city councilpeople. North Philly and South Philly. It's a beautiful thing."

  I screenshot the photo, add it to our growing folder of evidence. "And if Silverstein is helping Kingdom businesses by fast-tracking their licenses, and he's meeting privately with Maya who we're pretty sure is Mrs. Zenith, then..."

  "Then we have a city councilman working for the Kingdom," Tasha finishes. She sits back, taking off her glasses to clean them - nervous habit. "That's bad. That's really bad. But we can't really prove if Nina meant them specifically or was just including them for name recognition. It's all built on a stack of cards. All we have is suspicious patterns and circumstantial connections." She puts her glasses back on. "We need more. We need something that directly ties Silverstein to Kingdom operations. Or anyone, really."

  I'm about to respond when something occurs to me. "What if we check property records? See who actually owns the building Crescent operates in?"

  "Oh, that's smart." Tasha navigates to the city assessor's website. "What's the address?"

  I pull it up on my phone - Crescent's website has the address listed prominently, along with hours and a calendar of events. Very professional for a criminal front. "1847 Market Street."

  Tasha types it in, waits for the search results. "Okay, property is owned by... 'Liberty Services LLC.'"

  We both freeze.

  "That's one of the shell companies that donated to Silverstein's campaign," I say.

  "Yeah." Tasha clicks through more details. "Purchased the property six years ago for 2.4 million. No mortgage listed, so they paid cash. Prior owner was..." She squints. "Another LLC. 'Keystone Business Solutions.'"

  "That's another one from the donation list."

  "Yep."

  I'm pacing again, faster now. My ribs hurt but I ignore it. "So the same shell companies that are donating to Silverstein's campaign also own Kingdom properties. And Silverstein is fast-tracking liquor licenses for those properties. That's money laundering. That's corruption. That's--"

  "Still circumstantial," Tasha interrupts, but she looks worried now. "We can point to the pattern but we can't prove the companies are Kingdom fronts. They could claim they're legitimate businesses making legitimate campaign contributions. We'd need financial records, testimony, something concrete."

  "What about Thornton Transport?" I ask, shifting gears. "Did you find anything there?"

  She shakes her head. "Completely clean. Legitimate shipping company, been in business for forty years, no violations, no suspicious activity. Victor works there, exactly like he said. Whatever the Kingdom did to manipulate them, it wasn't through official channels."

  That makes sense. Social engineering doesn't leave paper trails. That's the whole point.

  I slump back down next to my laptop, frustrated. "So we have pieces but not proof. We know Silverstein is helping Kingdom businesses but we can't prove he knows they're Kingdom businesses. We know shell companies are involved but we can't trace them far enough. We think Maya and Silverstein meet privately but we don't know what they discuss."

  "It's still progress," Tasha offers. "We know more than we did this morning."

  "Yeah, but what do we do with it? We can't go to the cops - they won't investigate a sitting councilman based on suspicious patterns. We can't go public - we'd get sued for defamation. We can't--"

  There's a knock at the door.

  We both freeze.

  The Music Hall doesn't get visitors. It's not exactly advertised, because it looks like a run-down, abandoned building on the outside. On purpose.

  Tasha looks at me, and I can see my own anxiety reflected in her expression. "Are you expecting anyone?"

  "No." I'm standing, peeking out from the main ballroom to the stairwell. I can't even see the front door from this angle. My phone is still playing music. Some indie rock song I don't know the name of. Probably something from my Dad's playlists.

  The Rogue Wave burner phone sitting on the coffee table buzzes quietly. Tasha's face goes dark, and she flips it open.

  "Square up. Run. -RO," she says quietly.

  Knock knock CRASH!