“You understand,” he said, at the end of the third meeting, tapping the blue folder, “that once this moves, it moves fast, and you’ll be in the middle of it.” “Detective,” I said, “I’ve been in the middle of it for three years.

The only thing that changes now is that I stop pretending I’m not.” He nodded slowly.

He told me the financial-crimes unit would need to coordinate with federal regulators, because the numbers I was describing crossed borders and thresholds that pulled in the FBI.

He told me the ledgers that would nail Nathan were most likely in the biometric safe in Nathan’s office at Caldwell Design Group, behind the abstract painting on the west wall — and that with what I’d given him, a judge would sign a warrant to open it.

And he told me the thing I already knew but needed to hear from someone with a badge.