Cassian had not walked out on a helpless woman that night.

He had walked out and left evidence behind.

Chapter 5 — The Man Across the Road

I did not sleep much that first night in Cormac Ridley’s spare room, and not for the reasons a woman is supposed to lie awake in a strange man’s house.

I lay in a bed with clean, plain sheets that smelled of cedar, in a room with a single window looking out over a dark orchard gone wild, and I turned that photocopy over and over in my mind the way you probe a broken tooth with your tongue.

I was not afraid of him.