I called my wife at one in the morning while I was away on a business trip. My best friend answered her phone. He said, calmly, “She’s busy. She’ll call you back later.”

Chapter 1 — The Woman at the Door

The woman outside Ethan’s door was named Claire Mercer.

Even through the grainy image from my security camera, I could see the exact moment Ethan recognized her. His shoulders dropped, his mouth opened slightly, and every trace of confidence left his face.

Lauren stood behind him, still holding the papers from the gray envelope.

“Who is she?” Lauren whispered. Ethan didn’t answer.

Claire raised the sealed document toward the camera again. “Daniel asked me to deliver the final copy personally,” she repeated. “I’d open the door before this gets more embarrassing.”

Ethan stepped back from the screen as if she could reach through it. “She shouldn’t be here.”

Lauren grabbed his arm. “You said she was gone.”

“I said she wasn’t a problem anymore.”

“That is not the same thing.”

I watched from a conference room in Chicago, nearly seven hundred miles away. The security system fed everything to the tablet in front of me. Across the table, Martin Shaw — the forensic accountant who had spent the last six hours reviewing the financial records — leaned forward.

“He looks frightened,” Martin said.