My job was to find corporate fraud where it hid.

To follow hidden paper trails back to the people who thought they had covered them.

To outmaneuver white-collar criminals who were certain, every single time, that they were smarter than the systems built to catch them.

Valerie and Julian had built a fortress of forged documents and rehearsed lies, and they thought it made them untouchable.

They did not understand that they had built it directly in front of a woman who took fortresses like theirs apart for a living.

Slowly, calmly, I reached into my leather tote bag, and I drew out my laptop, and I set it on the table, and I opened it.