drove her to a police station, where two officers later agreed to accompany Nora back to the townhouse so she could collect essential belongings.

On the way, Leah kept glancing at her.

“You can stay with me as long as you need.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to decide everything today.”

Nora watched wet streets slide past the window.

“I think I already decided.”

“What?”

“That I’m never sleeping in that house with him again.”

Leah reached over and squeezed her uninjured hand.

The townhouse felt different when Nora entered with two police officers behind her.

Smaller.

More ordinary.

The foyer rug Colin had complained about for three months was still crooked.

His running shoes were by the stairs.

A grocery receipt lay on the console table.

Nora had once believed leaving would require some enormous dramatic event, some cinematic moment in which she finally became fearless.

Instead, she was afraid of almost everything.

She left anyway.

Upstairs, she packed clothing, work equipment, toiletries, medication, and several pieces of jewelry inherited from her mother.

She collected tax files, insurance documents, and the original deed to the townhouse.

The property was legally hers.

She had bought it nine years earlier, long before meeting Colin, using savings from her job as a procurement analyst and a modest inheritance from her grandmother.

Colin moved in after their engagement.

At first, he admired Nora’s independence.

Later, he seemed to resent every reminder that something existed outside his reach.

“This house feels like yours,” he once complained.

“It is mine,” Nora had answered lightly.

He did not laugh.

Now, kneeling beside the home office filing cabinet, Nora searched for the insurance binder and noticed that the bottom drawer was locked.

She frowned.

Colin locked almost nothing.

Then she remembered the small brass key she had seen months earlier in the zippered pocket of his gym bag.

The bag hung inside the closet.

The key was still there.

Nora inserted it into the drawer.

The lock opened.

Inside were ordinary records at first: automobile insurance, old utility bills, Mason’s business registration, and copies of Colin’s tax returns.

Behind them sat a thin charcoal-gray folder.

No label.

Nora pulled it free.

The first page stopped her breathing.

It was a bank statement from her personal savings account.

Not the joint account.

Her private one.

The account Colin was not supposed to access.

The next pages contained copies of her driver’s license, property deed, tax documents, and an old pay stub.

Then came a loan application.

Nora read the heading twice.

Home Equity Line of Credit.

Requested amount: $96,000.

Applicant: Nora Elise Hale.

Her address.

Her date of birth.

Her employer.

Her estimated income.

At the bottom was her signature.

Almost.

Nora had spent twenty years signing contracts and purchase orders at work.

She knew the exact shape of her name when written quickly.

The forged signature had copied the visible parts but missed one tiny habit: Nora always crossed the final stroke of the H backward.

This signature did not.

Leah crouched beside her.

“What did you find?”

Nora handed her the page.

Leah’s face drained of color.

“Did you apply for this?”

“No.”

One of the officers stepped closer.

“Ma’am, don’t write on anything.

Photograph the pages and put them back exactly where you found them.”