Her eyes filled, but she nodded.
We spent the next hour going through everything we could remember.
Documents Allison had asked about.
Questions Geoffrey had casually raised.
The time Allison borrowed our printer because hers “wasn’t scanning properly.”
The afternoon she helped Patricia organize a stack of insurance papers.
The family barbecue when Geoffrey asked whether our house was still in both our names.
At the time, every incident had seemed ordinary.
Placed together, they felt different.
But Martin had been right.
Feeling different was not proof.
And I had spent too many years inspecting systems to confuse suspicion with evidence.
So I made a list.
Dates.
Names.
Documents.
Questions.
Patricia watched me write.
“You’re doing your work thing.”
“My work thing?”
“The thing where something goes wrong and you turn into an investigator.”
“That kept half of south Phoenix from drinking contaminated water once.”
“I remember.”
She sat beside me.
