He scoffed and muttered something about a pathetic threat. Then he noticed the second sheet I’d left beside the ring: a photocopy of the oldest page of the passbook, showing the Horizon Builders deposits, laid alongside the newest page showing the half-million balance.

Through the grainy feed I watched the exact moment it landed.

He dropped the suitcase. The color went out of his tanned face fast enough that he swayed. He picked the photocopy up with shaking hands. “What is this?

How does she know?” he shouted at the empty walls.

He tore through the house, ripping open drawers, throwing Margaret’s belongings across the floor, hunting for the original passbook. An hour later he went down on his knees in the wreckage, soaked with sweat.

His phone rang, and I could just make out Chloe’s voice. He screamed into it: “Elena took the evidence of the old kickbacks! I’m ruined!”