update the registry, I’d be fired.

He said he already had control of the unit.

I should have called command.”

I looked at Peter’s pale face.

He had worked for my father for fifteen years.

He had sent flowers when my father went into the hospital.

“You should have,” I said.

“But tonight, you told the truth.

Stay available for a statement.”

He nodded as if I had spared him a worse sentence than termination.

A tow truck rolled beneath the awning, yellow lights flashing against the rain-slick stone.

Celeste watched through the glass as an officer approached the pearl-white car.

Her panic sharpened.

“Evan,” she whispered, though everyone could hear her, “my bag is in there.”

“Then you should have parked somewhere you were authorized to park,” I said.

Her eyes snapped to mine with pure hatred, but the hatred did not frighten me.

It made her smaller.

Real.

Not the mysterious woman in my husband’s late-night lies, but a frightened opportunist wearing stolen silk.

One of the officers crouched near my boxes.

He wore gloves now.

Carefully, he lifted my father’s leather chess case and examined the wet lining.

Then he stopped.

“Ms.

Ellery,” he said.

“There is something inside the false bottom.”

Evan went still.

Not angry.

Not loud.

Still.

Too still.

The officer slid out a small black drive sealed in a narrow plastic sleeve.

My breath caught.

I knew that drive.

I had seen it once, years ago, in my father’s private study.

He had taken it from a desk drawer when he thought I was not looking, then locked it in a wall safe behind a painting of the harbor.

Two nights before he died, he had asked me whether the chess case was still in the penthouse.

At the time, I thought pain medication had confused him.

“The chess case,” he had murmured, his fingers weak around mine.

“Don’t let Evan sell it.”

I had cried then.

I had kissed his hand and promised I would keep it because I thought he was clinging to sentimental things at the end.

He had not been confused.

He had been warning me.

Evan’s eyes locked on the drive.

Anika saw it too.

Her expression changed, almost imperceptibly, from legal composure to alarm.

“That item is covered under Mr.

Ellery’s confidential estate instructions,” she said.

“It comes with us.”

Evan shouted, “No.

That belongs to me.”

Everyone turned toward him.

The mistake hung there, bright and perfect.

Anika’s voice dropped.

“Why would a device hidden inside Mr.

Ellery’s personal chess case belong to you, Mr.

Harlow?”

Evan’s face flushed.

“I meant marital property.

Things in the home are marital property.”

“Interesting,” Anika said.

Celeste moved away from him another step.

For the first time that night, I saw fear on my husband’s face that had nothing to do with losing money.

“Anika,” I said quietly, “what is on that drive?”

She did not answer right away.

That told me more than words could have.

“Your father asked me not to discuss it until after probate filings began,” she said.

“But given tonight’s events, I believe the condition has been met.”

Evan slammed both palms against the glass.

“Mara, don’t listen to her.

Your father hated me.

He would say anything to turn you against me.”

I