Julien's firm was on the thirty-fourth floor of a building on Sixth Avenue. Glass everywhere. The kind of quiet that costs money.
I stepped out of the elevator at eight fifty-five. A receptionist in a gray blazer looked up and said my name before I gave it. That should have surprised me. It didn't.
Julien was waiting at the conference room door. Dark suit, no tie. He looked at me the way he always looked at me now—like he was checking something, making sure I was still in one piece.
'Come in,' he said.
The man already seated at the table stood when I entered. Medium height. Quiet eyes. The kind of face you'd forget in a crowd, which I suspected was the point.
'Sara, this is Marcus Webb. He handles investigative work for the firm.'
Marcus nodded once. 'Mrs. Evans.'
'Gilbert,' I said. It came out before I thought about it. My name. The one I was born with.
Marcus didn't blink. He just made a small note on the yellow pad in front of him.
We sat. Julien poured coffee. Marcus opened a thin folder and set it flat on the table like it was already evidence.
'Your husband and Ms. Castro meet every Thursday,' Marcus said. 'The Langham Midtown. They've been using the same room block for approximately fourteen months.' He said it the way you'd read a train schedule. Calm. Factual. 'Over the next two to three weeks, I'll document hotel receipts, pull text message records through the carrier subpoena, and obtain security footage from the lobby and parking structure.'
I kept my hands flat on the table.
'Will it hold?' I asked.
Marcus looked at Julien. Julien looked at me.
'It'll be airtight,' Julien said. 'Enough to trigger the morality clause in his employment contract. Enough to survive any challenge he tries to mount.'
I thought about Cody at the kitchen table. The way he'd shaken his head at that store-bought pie like it was a miracle.
'Okay,' I said.
Marcus closed the folder. 'I'll need you to stay normal. Don't change your routine. Don't confront him. Don't give him any reason to move carefully.'
'I've been staying normal for fifteen years,' I said. 'I can manage two more weeks.'
A pause. Marcus almost smiled. Almost.
---
We were out on the street by eleven.
The December air was sharp and bright. Julien turned uptown without explaining where we were going. I fell into step beside him.
'You don't have to do this,' I said.
'Do what?'
'Whatever comes next.'
He glanced at me sideways. 'We're going to Fifth Avenue. You need a coat that fits you.'
'Julien—'
'Not charity.' His voice was even. 'Preparation. There's a difference.' He kept walking. 'You're going to be seen in the next few weeks. In that theater. In that courtroom, if it comes to it. You're going to be seen, and you're going to look like someone who cannot be dismissed.'
I didn't answer. But I didn't argue either.
---
The salon was on 57th. White walls, low music, the smell of something warm and botanical. A woman named Claire sat me in the chair and ran her fingers through my hair with the focused expression of someone assessing damage.
She didn't say anything discouraging. She just got to work.
For two hours I sat very still. I watched color come back in slow, deliberate sections. I watched the shape of something return. Not the girl I used to be—something older than that. Something that had been through things and was still here.
Julien waited in the lobby the whole time. I could see him through the glass partition, standing with his phone in his hand, not reading it.
---
Bergdorf's was quiet for a Monday. Julien moved through the floor like he'd been there before, which he probably had. He stopped at a rack, pulled a coat without hesitating—deep charcoal cashmere, fitted through the shoulders, clean lines—and handed it to the attendant without looking at the tag.
'Try it,' he said.
I put it on.
The attendant pointed me toward the full-length mirror at the end of the room.
I walked toward it slowly. And then I stopped.
The woman in the glass had good posture. I hadn't noticed mine straightening, but it had. The coat fell exactly right. Her hair had shape and depth and life in it. Her eyes were clear.
She looked like someone who had made up her mind.
I stood there for a long moment. I waited for the tears. They didn't come.
Instead, I lifted my chin.
Julien appeared in the mirror behind me. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He just looked at my reflection with an expression that was quiet and certain and very, very careful.
Like he was looking at something he'd been waiting a long time to see.
'Keep the coat on,' he said.
I nodded.
We walked out onto Fifth Avenue together, into the cold white light of a December afternoon, and for the first time in fifteen years, I took up exactly as much space as I needed.
