Chapter 9: Three Days
Three days is a long time to sit across a table from someone who is planning to destroy you.
I learned to eat dinner without tasting it.
I learned to answer questions without answering them.
I learned to look at Daniel the way I had always looked at him — with the ordinary attention of a wife — while behind that expression I was somewhere else entirely.
He was performing too.
I could see it now, the way you can see a stage set once you know it's a stage.
The job opportunity he mentioned a second time, with slightly different details.
The small affections — a hand on my shoulder, coffee made without being asked — that had been absent for months and had now returned all at once.
On the second evening, he said: "I was thinking we could get away this weekend.
Just a night somewhere.
Clear our heads."
"That sounds nice," I said.
"I'll look at some options."
He didn't look at any options.
I watched him on his phone that night from across the room and he was not looking at hotels.
On the third morning, I got a call from my CFO.
Her name was Diane, and she had worked with me since the company's second year.
She was not someone who alarmed easily.
"Olivia," she said.
"The audit is done."
"How bad?"
"The $1,500 was the only payment that cleared.
There are three more invoices in the queue — they were submitted but hadn't been approved yet.
I've flagged them and frozen the vendor account." A pause.
"But Olivia — whoever submitted these had full access to the billing system.
Not just the vendor portal.
The whole system.
They could see every contract, every client account, every renewal date."
"They were looking for the right moment to scale up," I said.
"That's what it looks like." Another pause.
"There's something else.
I found a forwarding rule in your email.
Set up four months ago.
Every email you received from three specific clients — your three largest — was being copied to an external address."
"What address?"
She read it out.
I didn't recognize it.
But I wrote it down and sent it to Grace within the minute.
Grace called back in forty seconds.
"That address is registered to Hartwell Consulting," she said.
He had been reading my client communications for four months.
He knew which contracts were coming up for renewal.
He knew which clients were satisfied and which had concerns.
He knew exactly how to damage those relationships if he needed leverage.
"Frank needs to know," I said.
"I'm calling him now," Grace said.
"Olivia — he's ready to move.
Are you?"
I was standing in the hallway outside my office, one hand pressed against the wall, looking at the floor.
"Yes," I said.
"Tonight," Grace said.
"Frank is going to contact the financial crimes unit this afternoon.
The warrant request is already drafted.
He expects it to be executed tomorrow morning." She paused.
"Go home tonight as normal.
Don't change anything."
"And Daniel?"
"He'll be at home," she said.
"Let him be."
I went back into my office and closed the door and sat at my desk for a long moment.
Then I opened my laptop and spent the rest of the afternoon doing exactly what I always did — answering emails, reviewing contracts, preparing for a client call — because the work was still there, and it was still mine, and no one had taken it yet.
At six o'clock I drove home.
Daniel was on the couch.
The television was on.
"How was your day?" he said.
"Fine," I said.
"Busy."
"I made reservations," he said.
"For Saturday.
That place you like on the waterfront."
"That sounds lovely," I said.
I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water and drank it at the counter, looking out the window at the darkening street.
Saturday was three days away.
May you like
The warrant would be executed tomorrow morning.
He had no idea.
