I went to the front window without turning on any lights.

The street was quiet.

Amber from the streetlamp.

A neighbor's porch light on a timer.

And at the far end of the block, just past the corner, a dark sedan sitting with its engine off and no one visibly inside.

It had been there the night before.

I hadn't registered it then.

Now I couldn't look away from it.

"How long has that car been coming?" I asked.

"Four days," Caroline said behind me.

"Maybe five."

"And you didn't think to tell me."

"I didn't know if it was connected.

I didn't want to—"

"You didn't want to explain why you were watching the street." I turned from the window.

"Caroline.

What exactly did you think was going to happen?

That she could live in our walls forever?"

"I thought I had more time."

"More time for what?"

She looked at the floor.

"To figure out how to tell you without losing you."

I didn't answer that.

I couldn't, not yet.

I walked back to the passage and crouched at the entrance.

Diane was sitting now, her back against the wall, Mia asleep across her lap.

"Tell me about the accounts," I said.

"All of it.

From the beginning."

Diane looked up.

"Dad started moving money about two years before he died.

Small amounts at first.

I thought it was estate planning.

Then I found a transfer record — a big one — into a holding company I'd never heard of.

I asked Thomas about it.

He told me it was a tax structure, nothing to worry about." She paused.

"Three weeks later, someone broke into my apartment."

"Did they take anything?"

"My laptop.

A folder of printed bank records I'd been collecting.

Nothing else.

Not my wallet, not my jewelry.

Just those."

"You went to the police?"

"Thomas is on the board of the police foundation." Her voice was flat.

"I filed a report.

Nothing happened.

Then I got a call from a number I didn't recognize.

A man's voice.

He said: the next time, it won't be the apartment."

Mia shifted in her sleep.

Diane's hand moved automatically to the child's back.

"I left that night," she said.

"I didn't tell anyone because I didn't know who Thomas had already spoken to.

I didn't know who was safe."

"But you came to Caroline."

"Eight months ago.

Yes." She looked past me toward the hallway.

"I watched the house for two weeks first.

I needed to know you were both — that things were normal.

That he hadn't already gotten to you."

I sat back on my heels.

The envelope was still in my hand.

"These photographs.

Where did you get them?"

"I've been collecting evidence for three years.

From wherever I could.

A former employee of Thomas's found me eight months ago.

He had records, transfer documents, emails.

He was frightened too." She hesitated.

"He's not frightened anymore.

He passed away in January.

The official cause was a heart attack."

The word sat in the room like something physical.

"How old was he?"

"Forty-one."

I stood up slowly.

"Diane.

How much of this can be proven?"

"Enough.

If someone with the right access looks at the right accounts in the right order." She met my eyes.

"I've been building the file for three years, Ryan.

I didn't come back to hide forever.

I came back because I finally had enough."

I looked at the envelope in my hand.

Then at the dark window at the end of the hall.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Unknown number.

I answered it.

A man's voice.

Calm.

Almost friendly.

"Ryan.

I think it's time we had a conversation.

Don't you?"