stepped closer.

“My father invited you into his company.

He introduced you to every investor you ever bragged about knowing.

He paid off your first business loan when you told me it was a temporary cash-flow problem.”

Evan’s mouth tightened.

“Did you think I didn’t know?” I asked.

I had known pieces.

Not enough, never enough.

A wire transfer explained away.

A late-night call from a lender.

Evan’s sudden insistence that my father was controlling, judgmental, old-fashioned.

I had let each incident become separate in my mind because assembling them would have required me to see the shape of my marriage.

Now the shape stood in front of me, trapped behind glass.

Anika opened another envelope from her folder.

“Mara, your father retained a forensic accounting firm last month.

He believed Mr.

Harlow had been using his position as your spouse to approach Vale partners under false authority.

He also believed someone accessed his hospital safe the night before his death.”

My skin went cold beneath my wet dress.

“His hospital safe?”

Evan looked away.

That was all I needed.

The night before my father died, I had gone home for forty minutes to shower.

Evan had insisted.

He had said I looked terrible, that the nurses would call if anything changed, that I needed to stop making a spectacle of devotion.

When I returned, my father was awake and agitated.

He kept touching his chest, not because of pain, but as if looking for something.

“Gone,” he had whispered.

I thought he meant my mother.

Or time.

Or breath.

Now I knew he meant the drive.

But the drive had not been gone.

It had been moved, hidden in the chess case, perhaps by my father before the safe was searched.

Or by someone who did not understand the case had a false bottom.

I looked at Celeste.

She had gone silent.

“Celeste,” I said, “did you go to the hospital with Evan that night?”

Her lips parted.

Evan snapped, “Don’t answer her.”

Anika said, “Ms.

Lorne, you may want to consider whether protecting Mr.

Harlow is in your interest.

Security footage can answer the question eventually.

Your own answer might matter before it does.”

Celeste’s chin trembled, but she lifted it.

“I waited in the car.

He said he needed to get papers Mr.

Ellery had promised him.

He came back angry.

He said the safe was empty.”

Evan lunged toward her.

An officer stepped between them though the glass still separated the lobby into two worlds.

“You stupid—” Evan stopped himself, but too late.

Celeste’s eyes filled, not with innocence, but with the sudden terror of a woman realizing she had mistaken a predator’s attention for protection.

I felt no pity for the robe, the bracelet, the champagne, the laughter.

But I understood the fear.

“Take off my bracelet,” I said.

Celeste obeyed with shaking fingers.

She placed it on the concierge desk and stepped back from it as if it burned.

Anika nodded to an officer, who collected it in an evidence pouch.

“Now the robe,” I said.

Celeste flushed.

“Here?”

“There is a coat on the chair behind you.

You can preserve your dignity while returning what is mine.”

She pulled the robe from her shoulders and grabbed the coat with clumsy haste.

Beneath it