He had not attacked a helpless wife in a coma.

He had attacked a criminal defense attorney who had built her own defense before she ever hit the ground — who had, in effect, left detailed instructions for her own rescue and simply been waiting, in the dark, for someone to find them.

Chandler thought he was closing a case.

He had no idea the case had been open, and documented, and waiting for him, for two years.

She thought often, in the dark, about the version of herself who had drafted that clause.

Two years ago she had sat in her office late at night with a set of account statements that didn’t reconcile, and a cold, unwelcome suspicion she could not quite name, and she had done what her training told her to do when she couldn’t yet prove a thing but could feel it: she had protected herself.