She was afraid of him.

Not physically.

Not exactly.

She was afraid of what he might do next.

That mattered.

Eric noticed me noticing.

His face hardened.

“Marissa, stay out of this.”

She laughed softly.

“You brought me into it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You named an LLC after the street where we met.”

Silence.

I looked at her.

“Aster Lane?”

She nodded.

“There’s a restaurant there.”

I remembered.

Aster Lane was a narrow street downtown with expensive restaurants, boutique law offices, and a private club Eric once claimed he hated.

Now I understood why he seemed to spend so much time there.

Marissa looked at me.

“He told me Aster Lane Holdings was where he was moving his consulting income.”

I stared at Eric.

“You have consulting income?”

He said nothing.

She continued.

“He said he was leaving Carter Ridge at the end of the year.”

Carter Ridge was the commercial development company where Eric worked as vice president of acquisitions.

His salary was large.

His bonuses were larger.

He had never mentioned leaving.

“He said he wanted to start a firm,” Marissa added.

“He said he had clients already.”

My stomach tightened.

“What clients?”

She looked toward my laptop.

Then at the drive.

I understood before she answered.

“My clients.”

Marissa whispered, “I think so.”

Eric exploded.

“That’s enough.”

He slammed his palm against the kitchen island.

Nobody moved.

The movers had gone silent in the hallway.

Marissa flinched.

I did not.

“Actually,” I said, “I think we’re just getting started.”

The police arrived eleven minutes later.

By then, Eric had stopped shouting.

He became calm.

That was always his strongest performance.

He put on trousers and a button-down shirt.

He combed his hair.

He offered Detective Price coffee.

He spoke in measured sentences about marital misunderstanding, bookkeeping confusion, and how unfortunate it was that emotions had become involved.

I almost admired him.

Price did not.

He asked Eric to sit.

Then he asked me to explain how the drive had been found.

I did.

The mover who discovered it—Luis—gave his own statement.

“It was behind the media cabinet,” he said.

“Not inside.

Behind.

Taped underneath the lower cable channel.”

Price looked at Eric.

“Did you put it there?”

“No.”

“Do you recognize it?”

“No.”

I held it up in an evidence sleeve.

“My company inventory sticker is on it.”

Eric gave me a sad look.

“Natalie has hundreds of drives.”

“Forty-three,” I said.

He blinked.

“I have forty-three external storage devices assigned to active or archived projects.

Each has a serial number.

This one disappeared eleven months ago.”

Price looked at me.

“Did you report it?”

“Internally.”

“To whom?”

“My operations manager.”

“Name?”

“Rebecca Sloan.”

For the first time that morning, something changed in Eric’s face.

Tiny.

Almost invisible.

But I saw it.

Price did too.

“You know Ms.

Sloan?”

Eric shrugged.

“She’s worked with Natalie for years.”

That was true.

Rebecca had been with Brooks Design Studio almost from the beginning.

She was forty-two, hyper-organized, quietly funny, and more reliable than anyone I had ever hired.

When my mother had surgery, Rebecca handled the studio.