“Was that part of the project too?”

He took a long time to answer, and when he did, the whole confident architecture of his voice had collapsed.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then you can explain the resort receipts to my attorney,” I said, and hung up.

Late that night, twelve missed calls from Rosalind stacked up on my screen, followed by a text that arrived with the force of a slammed door. A respectable wife resolves private marital issues inside her own home, it read, instead of investigating her hardworking husband like a detective.

Valerie never meant anything to Brandon.