Her lawyer's name was Patrick Hale.

She had chosen him because he was expensive and because expensive had always meant safe to her.

He did not sound safe when she told him about Diane.

"Diane Marsh," he repeated.

"Yes."

A pause that lasted too long.

"Patrick."

"She's very good," he said.

"She's actually very, very good."

"I don't need you to admire her.

I need you to tell me what they can actually take."

Another pause.

She was sitting in her car at the end of the street, engine off, watching a neighbor walk a small dog past the front of his mother's house as though nothing had happened.

"The investment account is the problem," Patrick said.

"If they can show the source funds came from the joint account before any separation agreement was in place—"

"They can show that.

They have documentation going back eighteen months."

"Then that account is exposed.

Potentially all of it."

"How much of it?"

"All of it, I said."

She pressed her fingers against her temple.

"What about the property under my sister's name?"

"Is your sister prepared to testify that the purchase was genuinely hers?"

She thought about her sister.

About the conversation they'd had three years ago in a restaurant booth, the one where she had explained the plan and her sister had said yes without asking enough questions.

"I don't know," she said.

"Then we treat that as exposed too."

She looked at the leather folder on the passenger seat.

She had taken it from the table without thinking.

Diane had not stopped her.

That bothered her more than anything else — the fact that Diane had watched her take it and said nothing.

She opened it with one hand.

There were more pages than she had realized.

Bank statements.

Transfer records.

A printed log of wire transactions with dates highlighted in yellow.

And at the back, behind a plain divider, photographs.

Her, at a restaurant.

Her, at a hotel entrance.

Her, in conversation with a man she recognized as a property broker, signing something across a table.

Every photograph had a date stamp in the corner.

"Patrick," she said slowly.

"They have photographs."

"Of what?"

"Of everything."

The silence this time was different.

It had weight.

"How long have they been building this?" he asked.

"Apparently two years."

"Then they didn't react to your divorce filing," he said.

"They were waiting for it."

She closed the folder.

Outside, the neighbor with the dog had turned the corner and disappeared.

The street was empty now.

The afternoon light was the same as before but it looked different to her.

Flatter.

Less forgiving.

"What do I do?" she asked.

"Right now?

Nothing.

You don't contact him.

You don't contact his mother.

You absolutely do not contact Diane Marsh under any circumstances.

You come to my office tomorrow morning at nine and we go through everything."

"And if they file before tomorrow?"

"Then we respond.

But they won't file tonight.

They're not in a hurry." He paused.

"That's the part that concerns me most, honestly.

People in a hurry make mistakes.

These people are not in a hurry."

She ended the call.

She sat in the car for a long time.

Then she opened the folder again and turned to the last photograph.

It was different from the others — not a surveillance shot taken from a distance.

This one was closer.

Clearer.

It was taken at her own wedding reception.

She was leaning toward someone at the bar, laughing, her hand on his arm.

Her new husband was visible in the background, turned away, talking to his mother.

The man she was laughing with was not a friend of the family.

She had not expected them to have this one.

Her phone lit up again.

Not Patrick this time.

Her sister's name on the screen.

She answered it.

"They called me," her sister said immediately.

"A woman named Diane.

She said I have until Friday."