"The day my husband told me his first love was pregnant with his baby, I was holding a medical report proving he couldn't father children.

The settlement agreement gave me thirty days to collect personal property from the mansion.

I used twenty-eight of them.

Not from hesitation.

From preparation.

I spent those days meeting twice more with Detective Voss, reviewing the floor plan of the mansion I had lived in for three years with the particular attention of someone who now understood that every room she had passed through had been hiding something.

I reviewed the terms of the divorce agreement with my own attorney — a woman named Patricia Hale, who had a reputation in Chicago legal circles for being the person you called when the other side had more money than you.

I transferred the relevant copies of the fertility report, the courier envelope, and Detective Voss's contact information to three separate secure locations, as I had told Ethan I would.

And I waited to hear from Marcus Cole.

He did not call.

He did not appear.

His silence sat at the edge of everything like a door left slightly open.

On the twenty-eighth day, I drove to the mansion.

Two of Detective Voss's people were parked in separate vehicles on the street outside.

She had told me how to identify them.

I didn't look directly at either car as I approached the front entrance.

The security guard at the gate was someone I didn't recognize.

That alone told me something.

During three years of marriage I had learned the name of every guard who worked the front entrance.

This man was new.

He had been placed here recently.

Possibly in the last forty-eight hours.

He checked my identification against a list on a tablet, made a phone call I was not meant to hear the full content of, and then opened the gate without a word.

Ethan was waiting in the front hall.

Not his attorney.

Not a staff member.

Ethan himself.

Dressed in a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to the forearms, standing with his hands at his sides in the way he stood when he was working very hard at appearing relaxed.

"Claire." He said my name the same way he always had.

Like a statement that expected no argument.

"Ethan.

I'm here for the rest of my things."

"Of course." He didn't move from the center of the hall.

"I thought I'd be here personally.

To make sure everything goes smoothly."

"I didn't ask for that."

"No," he agreed.

"You didn't."

A mover I had hired — a company Patricia Hale had recommended, people who had no connection to anyone in the Blackwood organization — appeared behind me with a trolley.

Ethan's eyes moved to the man, then back to me.

"I'll need access to the study," I said.

"I left several personal items in the bookcase on the east wall."

Something moved behind his expression.

So briefly that anyone who hadn't spent three years studying that face would have missed it entirely.

"The study is locked," he said.

"It wasn't in the property access agreement."

"The agreement covers personal property.

Not access to business spaces."

"The study isn't listed as a business space in the agreement." I had read the document eleven times.

"It's listed as a shared living area."

His jaw set.

"Patricia Hale drafted that language herself," I added.

"You're welcome to call your attorney."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he reached into his pocket and produced a key.

He held it out.

He did not step forward to give it to me.

He waited for me to cross the hall to take it.

I crossed the hall.

I took the key.

His hand didn't move while mine was near it.

"You look well," he said quietly.

Just to me.

Not for the mover's benefit.

"I am well."

"I didn't want it to be like this."

"You made it like this."

"Claire—"

"Where is Marcus, Ethan?"

His face didn't change.

That was the tell.

A man who didn't know the answer would have shown a flicker of confusion.

Ethan showed nothing at all.

"I don't know what you mean."

"He hasn't been seen in nine days."

"Marcus takes personal time.

He doesn't report his schedule to me."

"He reports everything to you.

That's his job."

Ethan tilted his head very slightly.

"Be careful what questions you ask in my house, Claire."

I held the key in my closed hand.

"I'm not in your house," I said.

"I'm in a property whose access terms are governed by a legal agreement.

There's a difference."

I walked past him toward the study.

The bookcase on the east wall held exactly what I had told him it held.

Three personal books.

A small framed photograph of my parents.

A ceramic dish my mother had given me.

It also held, behind the false back panel on the third shelf — a panel I had discovered by accident eighteen months ago and had never mentioned to anyone — a set of documents I had photographed and left in place.

I collected my personal items visibly.

I let the mover pack them onto the trolley.

Then I reached to straighten one of the remaining books on the shelf.

My fingers found the edge of the panel.

It shifted exactly as it always had.

The documents were gone.

Someone had cleared them in the last twenty-eight days.

I kept my face still.

I turned.

I thanked the mover.

I walked toward the door.

Ethan was standing in the hallway exactly where I had left him.