LOGINShe called back immediately.The call went to voicemail.She called Tobias before the voicemail message had finished. He picked up in one ring."I heard it," he said. He was already moving — she could hear it in his voice, the particular compression of someone in motion. "I'm forty minutes out. I'm going.""I'm coming too.""Nyla—""I'm coming," she said. "Call it in to the county sheriff on the way. Don't wait for me."She was in her car in four minutes. The city was early morning quiet and she drove through it faster than she should have and did not think about anything except the road and the ninety miles of it and the forty minutes Tobias had said and whether forty minutes was close enough or not close enough and what the word close enough even meant in this context.She tried Cameron again at the first red light.Voicemail.She tried again twenty minutes into the highway.Voicemail.She told herself what she knew. She had heard one shot. A single shot. She had not heard Cameron's
Cameron insisted on going alone.She understood the logic. She did not like it. Those two things existed at the same time without resolving each other, and she had learned — imperfectly, reluctantly — that some arguments were worth having and some were not, and that knowing the difference was one of the harder skills she had acquired in the past year.She made her case once, clearly. He heard it and responded with his own case, equally clearly. His reasoning was this: Eric had fired at him the night before. Eric had not fired at Nyla. Whatever Eric felt toward Cameron was direct and hot — the specific hatred of a man who saw Cameron as the thing standing between himself and the person he wanted to destroy. Walking into that cabin with Nyla present would change the dynamics in unpredictable ways."If I go alone," Cameron said, "he might talk. If you're there, he'll perform."She thought about that. She thought about the television interview — Eric composed and deliberate and choosing e
He was out in fifty-one hours.Not forty-eight. Fifty-one. As if the extra three were a small mercy his lawyers had arranged specifically to make the point that forty-eight had always been approximate.Nyla heard about it from Patricia Osei at six in the morning — a call that began with a pause long enough that she understood the news before the words arrived."Bail was granted at eleven last night," Patricia said. "The hearing was expedited. His legal team argued procedural grounds on the warrant timeline and the judge agreed to set bail at eight million pending review." Another pause. "He posted it within the hour.""Eight million," Cameron said from across the kitchen. He had heard it through the phone."To Robert Sinclair," Patricia said, "eight million is a Tuesday."The bail conditions were strict — surrender of passport, daily check-ins, no contact with known associates named in the indictment. Robert's legal team had agreed to all of it without argument, which Patricia said wa
Cameron insisted on driving himself despite the shoulder and she let him because arguing about it would have cost them five minutes they didn't have and because she had seen the way he moved and understood that the wound was real but not incapacitating. She sat in the passenger seat with Reeves on the phone and Tobias following three cars behind and the city thinning around them as they left the lights of the centre behind.Reeves had moved quickly once the authorisation cleared. Two vehicles of federal agents were already converging on the airstrip from the south. The charter company had been contacted under the guise of a routine flight safety inspection — enough to delay boarding by forty minutes without alerting Robert directly."He's already at the terminal," Reeves said. "Private lounge. His lawyers are with him. He has three pieces of luggage.""He was planning to be gone a long time," Nyla said."Or permanently," Cameron said. He said it without inflection. Just the plain arit
The letter was on Roberts's personal stationery.She recognised it immediately — the heavy cream paper, the discreet monogram at the top, the same letterhead she had seen on documents in Elena's blue folder. The letter was dated fourteen months ago. Three weeks before Eric had first come to Robert's attention as someone useful. Three weeks before their marriage had begun its final, deliberate deterioration.She read it standing in the corridor with Cameron behind her and building security at the far end and the sound of a distant siren growing closer through the building's walls.She read it twice.Then she folded it along its original crease and held it at her side and stood very still for a moment.The letter was a payment confirmation and a set of instructions.It confirmed a transfer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to an account she recognised as one of Eric's — one of the ones buried in the financial records she had spent months untangling. It confirmed a further series
She stood at the window for exactly forty seconds after he left.Then she picked up her phone and pulled up the building's security feed on the app Cameron had given her access to three weeks ago for reasons she had not fully examined at the time. The feed was grainy and divided into four quadrants — lobby, car park entrance, service corridor, elevator bank.She found Cameron on the service corridor feed. Moving fast and low, cutting through the building's back route rather than taking the elevator down. He knew this building the way she had come to know her own — every exit, every blind spot, every route that was not the obvious one.She watched the screen and did not allow herself to think about anything except what she was seeing.He found Eric on the fourth floor.She saw it happen on the feed — the service corridor camera catching both of them at opposite ends of the same hallway. Cameron moving north. Eric moving south. The moment they saw each other was not visible on the scree
Eric was pacing in the living room when Nyla walked through the door."Where have you been?" His voice was sharp with barely controlled panic. "You have been gone for hours. I called you three times.""I went out," Nyla said, setting her purse down."Out where?""Shopping.""Shopping." Eric stared
Eric was being unbearably sweet."You look absolutely stunning tonight," Eric said for the fourth time. "That dress is perfect on you."Nyla smiled without warmth. "Thank you."When they arrived at the Grand Plaza Hotel, Eric practically leaped out to open her door again. He offered his arm. Smiled
The first creditor called three days after the bankruptcy filing."Mr. Harper? This is First National Bank calling about your outstanding loan. We need to discuss payment arrangements.""I filed for bankruptcy," Eric said."Corporate bankruptcy. Not personal bankruptcy. Your personal guarantees on
The bankruptcy filing happened on a Tuesday morning.Eric's lawyer called at eight. "The paperwork is being filed today. Once it hits the courts, it becomes public record. The media will pick it up within hours.""I understand," Eric said."I am sorry it came to this."Eric hung up without respondi







