The doctor asked her where it hurt. Rae put a finger against the place under her ribs and let him do his work.
Jun supplied what he'd seen from the corner. When the doctor asked about the pause, Jun gave the sequence precisely: knockdown, continued boxing, bell, disclosure. His voice changed on the last word. Rae watched him put the towel into the bag while the examination continued.
By the time Roberts came, Rae had instructions in writing and a ride to arrange. The inspector pulled up a chair instead of standing over her.
"We're continuing the account you started in the ring," she said. "You said the money came in May. Which date?"
"Twelfth. The offer was the ninth."
"Who was in the room?"
"Dorian and me. Mick had left. I thought he didn't know."
Roberts waited while Rae found the notebook. Her fingers were swollen enough that the elastic holding it shut became a problem. She worked it off without asking Jun.
The first dates were in her phone. The diner conversation, then her own account of the visit with Tess and Dorian. She set both on the table. Roberts asked her to distinguish what she'd written at the time from what she remembered now. Rae showed the different pages, the date she'd corrected to afternoon instead of pretending she knew the hour.
"That's my bank transfer," she said, opening it. "Tess showed me a sheet for the account it came from. Celia's company in on the eleventh. Out to me on the twelfth. It was forty. There wasn't other money on that sheet."
"You have a copy?"
"No. She pulled it away when I took out my phone. I wrote what I saw."
"And the company record?"
"Paul Mercer showed me theirs. I asked because I needed to know if Tess was lying."
Roberts wrote the name. Rae told her what Celia had said the money was for, the fifty-five in April and the reserved forty. She gave her own bank details and the payments she'd made from the advance. Twenty-four gone at first, then ordinary costs; she would get the statements rather than guess the balance now.
"You were asked about payments last night," Roberts said.
"Yes."
"You called it event support."
Rae looked at the notebook. "I lied to you."
Roberts waited for more. Rae had nothing to add that didn't move the sentence away from herself.
"The flag last night," Rae said. "Where did it come from?"
"An operator’s integrity officer forwarded a complaint. Someone had been approached to share private exposure on a guaranteed sixth-round stoppage. They refused. Reported the approach instead. It came through the gaming office to us."
"Who approached them?"
"Tess Marr. That’s the allegation we received."
Rae looked at the door. "Who did she ask?"
"I’m not identifying that person. We’re still taking accounts."
The inspector asked her to preserve the phone, the notebook and the financial records. There would be a formal statement, requests to other people, advice Rae needed to get. The purse was on hold. Rae could not settle the matter by explaining why she'd stood up.
She nodded, then said she understood when Roberts looked back at her. The inspector took her contact details for the next step and left her the name of the person to contact about supplying records.
Jun stood at the door. Len had gone with his own instructions and a face Rae hadn't wanted to keep looking at. Jun set the bag within her reach.
"I'm calling Flo," he said. "She's still here."
"I'll ask her."
"Then ask."
He handed over the phone. Rae called, asked for a ride, listened while Flo checked with Tony. She repeated the medical instructions that mattered tonight. Jun stayed until the arrangement was made.
"You don't have to drive me," she said when she'd finished.
"I wasn't going to."
She looked down at his hands. He was pulling a strip of tape off his wrist, rolling it into a tight little ball.
"Before I took the job," he said. "That was when you should've told me."
"Yes."
"I would've said no. You knew that."
"I knew you might."
He dropped the tape into the trash. "Next week, don't call about training. Don't call Len instead. I'll contact the commission and give them what they ask for. You get your own advice."
"All right."
"And don't put my name under a post about who helped you be brave."
That made her look up. He was looking directly at her.
"I won't."
Jun nodded once. At the door he glanced back at the bag, checking she could carry it, then left without adjusting the strap.
Rae sat until the medic needed the room. She took the bag into the hall. At the far end Roberts was speaking to Tess outside an office. Dorian stood beside a different official, his blue jacket over one arm, phone in his hand. He saw Rae looking. He held her gaze until the official asked him something and he had to turn away.
Mick waited by a vending machine on the public side of the next barrier. His ticket had been folded into a narrow strip.
"I've been checked," Rae said before he could ask.
He looked at her side anyway.
"You stood up."
"I know."
"I saw you go down and I thought—"
He stopped. Rae put the bag down carefully. There was no wall she could lean against without making him move to help her.
"You thought the money would arrive."
"I thought you were hurt."
The answer came sharp and immediate. She believed it.
"You could think both."
Mick looked at the folded ticket. "Yes."
People passed between them, carrying coats, looking at their phones. One man recognized Rae and began to slow, then saw Mick's face and kept moving.
"I gave them your name," she said. "What you told me. Mine too."
"I saw Jun call them over."
"I didn't make you the reason."
He rubbed the ticket between thumb and finger until the paper began to split.
"I wanted you out of it last night," he said.
"I know."
"I meant it."
"Then tell them that. Tell them the other parts too."
His face tightened. "You don't think I will?"
"I don't know what you'll do."
He looked angry then, and less old. The man who'd turned on a bad promoter for withholding a room, who had once driven across the city because Rae said a landlord wouldn't fix the heat. She knew the energy. She had loved being on the side of it that got defended.
"Eighteen years," he said. "You don't know me at all now."
"I know who put cookies in my pocket."
He blinked. She could see the little remembered kindness reach him before he understood that she wasn't offering it as an answer.
"They were the good ones," he said.
"I know."
The ticket broke. He held the two pieces together for a moment, trying to make a useful shape of them.
"You want me to wait?"
"Tony's driving."
"That's not what I asked."
Rae looked down the corridor. A staff member stood by the media-room door, watching for her answer. Her own availability, after Celia's interview, if she still intended to do it.
"Not tonight," she said.
Mick nodded. She picked up the bag, waited for the pain of that small movement to pass and went through the barrier without touching his sleeve.
Inside the media room a man asked whether she wanted to talk about the pause before they began. Rae sat at the table. Someone moved a bottle of water within reach.
"Ask," she said.
He asked. She gave the amounts, the condition, the May ninth offer and her acceptance. Dorian's name, Tess's, Mick's admitted part in arranging it. The way the forty had reached her from Celia's event installment. The room became very quiet at that, then everyone wanted to speak at once.
"Did Vega pay for you to lose?"
"Not according to what she told me. She paid for the event and preparation. They diverted the second payment. I found that out and still didn't tell her."
"Do you have proof?"
"I've given the inspector what I have. My bank record, my notes, the people who hold the other records. They'll ask them."
"Why go on fighting?"
"I wanted to win."
"After getting paid to lose."
"Yes."
She let him type that. The water bottle crackled beneath her fingers until she set it down.
Then she named Alicia Torres. The bought retirement in 2014, Alicia's account and Mick's admission. Rae's own ignorance then and the years she'd spent telling people the clip proved Alicia didn't want it enough.
"I put those words over her face," she said. "I used it in my gym. I took down the version I controlled. I'll correct it with her name."
A reporter asked whether this meant the world title too. Rae said no, she had no basis for that claim. Another asked about her license. She said she didn't know what would happen. She answered two more questions, then told them she needed to follow the medical instructions and speak with the people involved. Nobody applauded when she stood.
Celia waited outside with Nita. Her team jacket hung open; someone had given her a paper cup, and she was turning it slowly in both hands. Nita stepped a few feet away, still near enough to hear if Celia wanted her.
"My forty," Celia said.
Rae lowered the bag. "Yes."
"That's what the inspector told me. In the corner. I kept thinking she'd said it wrong."
"She didn't."
Celia looked past her at the door. "They were asking me if I wanted to carry on. You were sitting over there. I had to decide with everyone looking. After six rounds I didn't know what you'd sold."
Rae stayed still.
"I told Nita yes because I wanted to hit you. Then I got out there and I wanted to win. I could hear myself being stupid about both."
"You weren't—"
"Don't coach me."
Rae closed her mouth.
Celia took the lid off the cup and put it back on. Her hands were shaking now. "You knew when I was going to pull out. When you sat there with Paul and promised."
"Yes."
"After the car wash. Lunch. I sat there laughing with you."
Rae could see the sauce on her thumb, the rocking table Celia had steadied with a folded receipt. She said yes again and hated the smallness of it.
"I spent my money to get you to try," Celia said. "And my forty was the price of you stopping. They took it through me. You knew and you let me tell you about going swimming."
Rae looked at the lid Celia was crushing between her thumbs.
"I thought I could pay it back."
"You could've told me."
"Yes."
"Before I had to choose under the lights. Before they could ask if I'd bought myself a win."
Nita put a hand against the wall, fingers spread. Rae had never seen her look tired like this.
"Did you give me the shot?" Celia asked.
"No."
"Take a second."
Rae did. The first five rounds, the answers she'd held back, the point she intended to be done. The punch that had come where she didn't want it.
"I kept the end available," she said. "I didn't give you the punch. I didn't go in prepared to give you everything either."
Celia looked at her for a long time. "I know I won the last."
"You did."
"I wasn't asking."
Rae looked away. Inside the media room somebody was repeating the amounts into a phone. She could hear her own name.
"That's what you put around it," Celia said. "They can ask me about your deal every time they ask about my fight."
"I'll answer for what I did."
"You already had things to answer for. You kept letting me make plans."
She took a breath, unsteady, and looked toward Nita. The trainer pushed away from the wall.
"I'll answer for mine," Celia said. "The financing. Keeping it from them. I don't need you explaining how much I can bear."
"All right."
"Don't call tomorrow. Not with a better way to say any of this."
Rae nodded. Celia waited until she answered aloud.
"I won't."
They left together. Celia threw the cup into a trash can beside the exit, missed, went back and picked it up. Nita waited. Rae watched Celia do that small unnecessary decent thing and felt the night become unbearable in a new place.
Flo found her beside the media-room door. Tony had brought the car around. Her niece took the bag when Rae offered it and asked whether the instructions were inside.
"Outside pocket."
Flo found them, read the part about what to watch for and asked one practical question. Rae answered. Then they walked out together, Tony holding the outer door, the night cool against Rae's swollen cheek.