“You are making this bigger than it is, Kiki,” she said, and the speaker clicked, and she was gone.

Zoe lowered her pencil.

“She never answered.” “No.” “Can we still ask the bank?” I started the Buick.

“Yes.” Because that was the thing I had understood somewhere between the library and the car: Monique was no longer trying to convince me the deal was real.

She was trying to find out how much I had already told the one institution that could stop it.

That was the thing I understood somewhere between the library and the car, and it changed how I heard everything after.