She had thought, I suppose, that slipping out through the kitchen would let her become, overnight, a person this had not happened to.

But evidence does not care about your exit route, and a litigation hold is precisely the mechanism that prevents the frightened from quietly editing the record on their way out the door.

Her laptop and her phone stopped being her possessions the moment the hold took effect and became, instead, part of the story the numbers were going to tell.

She turned, and when she looked at me, the composure was entirely gone, and what remained was younger and more frightened than the woman in the red gown had seemed all night.