Grace didn't flinch.

She turned her phone face-down, picked up her pen, and made a note.

"All right," she said.

"She moved faster than I expected.

That's fine."

"That's fine?" Daniel said.

"It means she's scared." Grace didn't look up from her notepad.

"Scared people make mistakes.

She filed before she knew what evidence we have.

That's a mistake." She finished writing and looked at him.

"Here's what happens now.

The police will contact you — probably tomorrow morning.

You will say nothing without me present.

Nothing.

Not a clarification, not a correction, not a polite denial.

Nothing."

"And the emails?"

"Forward me everything in that account.

Tonight.

I want to read them before she produces them, so there are no surprises." She paused.

"Are there any surprises?"

Daniel held her gaze.

"No."

"Good." She closed her legal pad.

"I'm going to call Officer Reeves tonight and make sure he's aware that a report has been filed by the same individual whose home he visited this afternoon in connection with a p0isoning complaint.

That context matters.

Courts don't like it when someone files a counter-report within hours of being caught."

After Grace left, Daniel locked the front door and stood in the hallway for a moment.

The house was quiet.

Lily had moved from the sofa to her bed sometime in the last hour.

He checked on her — she was asleep properly now, her small face relaxed, one hand open on the pillow beside her.

He stood in her doorway longer than he needed to.

Three months.

He had been getting sicker for three months and he had told himself it was work, stress, the dry winter air.

He had taken the tea every morning because Nora handed it to him and he had believed, without ever examining the belief, that someone who made you tea in the morning was someone who wished you well.

He went back downstairs and forwarded every email from the relevant account to Grace.

Then he sat at the kitchen table and did something he had been avoiding since the morning.

He called Claire.

She answered on the third ring, cautious.

"Daniel."

"I need to tell you something before you hear it from someone else," he said.

"Nora may produce our emails.

She's building a case and she needs material."

A long pause.

"What kind of case?"

"She's filed an asNextlt report.

She may try to use the emails to suggest I was — unavailable.

Emotionally.

As a way to build a custody argument over Lily."

"Lily isn't her child."

"I know."

"Daniel." Claire's voice was steady but tight.

"Those emails are two years old.

There is nothing in them that is anything other than two people who made a brief and mutual decision and then went back to being colleagues."

"I know that."

"Does your lawyer know?"

"She does now."

Another pause.

"What do you need from me?"

"Nothing yet.

I just needed you to know it was coming so you weren't blindsided."

"All right." A breath.

"For what it's worth — I'm sorry you're in this."

"So am I."

He hung up and sat with the silence of the house.

His phone buzzed.

A message from an unknown number — different from Paula's.

*You should have just let me stay.

This didn't have to happen.

It still doesn't.

Call me and we can end this quietly.*

He screenshot it.

Forwarded it to Grace.

Then he turned his phone face-down on the table and didn't pick it up again until morning.

At 7:14 a.m., Grace called.

"The lab put a rush on the bottle," she said.

"They have preliminary results."

Daniel's hand tightened on the phone.

"What was in it?"