PART 4: EIGHT YEARS EARLIER

There was a reason I had kept the papers.

Eight years earlier, I had not been a commander with a team of investigators who trusted my judgment.

I was twenty-six, newly pregnant, exhausted, and married to a man whose admiration had gradually curdled into contempt.

When Daniel and I first met, he was charming.

He listened when I discussed my work, admired my ambition, and said he loved that I wouldn’t accept an easy answer.

Once we married, those same qualities became, in his words, evidence that I was difficult.