He had sat across a conference table from me a dozen times over the past six weeks.

And he knew, because I had told him plainly, what my husband had been doing to the company’s books.

He touched two fingers to his cuff — the small signal we had agreed on that afternoon, after the closing documents were signed.

It meant everything is ready.

It meant the board has voted.

It meant whenever you are.

We had worked out the signal the way you work out a fire drill, hoping not to need it and glad to have it.

Malcolm was a careful man, and careful men like a plan with a spine in it, and I had given him one.