The text came in on a Thursday afternoon.
I was sitting at my desk reviewing quarterly projections—real ones, not the doctored versions Colson had been submitting to the board—when my phone lit up. Colson's name. A photo.
Raquel, in a red wrap dress, standing in front of what looked like a hotel mirror. The caption: *Can't wait for tonight 😘*
I set the phone face-down on the desk. Put both hands flat on the surface. Breathed.
Then I picked it back up and looked at it again. The dress was new. The smile was the kind women wear when they believe they are winning.
I called him.
He answered on the second ring, voice easy, unsuspecting. 'Hey, you okay?'
'I just got a strange text from your number.' I kept my voice small. Confused. 'A photo. Of a woman.'
A pause. Half a second. I counted it.
'Oh God.' He exhaled like a man genuinely embarrassed. 'That's Raquel—she borrowed my phone this morning for a work call, she must have accidentally sent something from her camera roll. I'm so sorry, babe. That's mortifying for her.'
Mortifying for her.
'Oh.' I let a little laugh into my voice. 'I feel silly. I almost—'
'Don't.' Warm now. Reassuring. 'You had every right to call. I'm glad you did.'
'I'm sorry for overreacting.'
'You didn't. I love you.'
'I love you too.'
I hung up. Screenshotted the photo. Screenshotted the timestamp. Opened the encrypted file and added both, along with a note: *He answered in two rings. Prepared.*
Raquel was bold. Getting bolder. She thought she was taunting me. She didn't understand she was building my case, piece by piece, with her own hands.
I touched my mother's bracelet and went back to the projections.
---
The lunch idea came to me at 5 AM.
I'd been tracking the pattern for three weeks. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Colson and Raquel left the office between 12:15 and 12:40. Never together through the front. Always the parking garage. They were back by two. Consistent enough to be habit. Careless enough to be arrogance.
I made his favorite. Roast chicken on ciabatta, the good mustard, a small container of the soup he liked from the place on Lexington. I packed it in a canvas bag with a cloth napkin because details matter. Details are what make people lower their guard.
The receptionist at Burke Enterprises lit up when she saw me. 'Mrs. Hicks! He's going to love this.'
'Don't tell him I'm here,' I said, smiling. 'I want to surprise him.'
She pressed a hand to her chest. 'You two are just the sweetest.'
I took the elevator up. Colson's office was empty. 12:22 PM.
I set the lunch bag on his desk. Pulled the device from my coat pocket—small, matte black, the size of a thumb drive, exactly what it was—and plugged it into his laptop. The PI team had walked me through it twice. Thirty seconds. Maybe forty.
I kept my back to the glass wall and watched the progress bar.
Financial statements. Board signatures. Email chains. A folder labeled simply *Z* that, when I reviewed it later that night at my desk with the door locked and Eiden asleep, contained a draft flight itinerary. Zurich. Two passengers. One-way. February 14th.
Valentine's Day. He'd always had a sense of occasion.
I pulled the device, dropped it back in my pocket, and wrote the note on a Post-it from his own desk drawer. *Miss you. Love, V.* I pressed it to the top of the lunch bag, smoothed it flat, and walked out.
The receptionist waved as I passed. I waved back.
In the elevator, I looked at my own reflection in the brushed steel doors. I looked completely fine.
---
Catherine Aldridge's office was on the thirty-fourth floor of a building in Midtown that smelled like expensive paper and enforced discretion. She was sixty-one, silver-haired, and had the particular stillness of someone who had heard every version of every story and was no longer surprised by any of them.
I laid the dossier on her desk. PI reports. Financial records. The cloned files. The shell company. The Zurich itinerary.
She read without speaking. When she finished, she closed the folder and looked at me.
'You have enough to end him civilly,' she said. 'But if you want criminal prosecution—fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy—you let him make one more move. Give him rope.'
'I know.' I'd already decided that. 'I need one more thing first.'
'The custody filing.'
'Preemptive.' I held her gaze. 'He'll use Eiden the second he feels cornered. I want the motion ready before he knows there's a corner.'
Catherine studied me for a moment. The kind of look that was also an assessment.
'Most clients come in here crying,' she said.
'I cried,' I said. 'I did it alone, at home, once. Then I came here.'
She nodded once. Opened her desk drawer. Pulled out a legal pad.
'Then let's get to work.'
