The study

(Naomi POV)

“Could be anyone,” Priya said, frowning at the phone screen. “Could be nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” Naomi turned the phone over in her hand. “Whoever sent this knows about the report. Marcus and I are the only two people who know about the report.”

“Marcus wouldn’t send an anonymous text. He’d call you himself. He already did.”

“Then someone else knows,” Naomi said. “Someone close enough to Julian to know there’s a study worth asking about.”

Priya was quiet a moment, thinking it through the way she did everything, methodically, out loud. “Theo,” she said finally. “Julian’s brother. He’s the only person in that family who ever looked at you like he actually liked having you around.”

Naomi hadn’t considered it. But it fit. Theo, who’d said I always thought you actually loved her at the fundraiser, close enough to the family to know about a locked room, uneasy enough with what his brother had done to want her to have a way in.

She didn’t reply to the number. Not yet. She wanted to see if it texted again before she decided whether to trust it.

That night she couldn’t sleep. She sat with her laptop open and a legal pad covered in names she was starting to understand mattered more than she’d realized. Marcus Webb. Vivian Calloway. The study. And now, underlined twice, Theo Calloway.

Priya emerged from her room around two in the morning, hair loose, and didn’t bother pretending she’d been asleep either.

“You’re still up.”

“I keep thinking about what Marcus said,” Naomi said. “That Julian’s never let himself ask the question. That’s not the same as him already knowing.”

“Does it matter?” Priya asked, sitting across from her. “He still let you believe a version of the story that wasn’t true. Whether he knew or just didn’t want to know.”

“It matters to me,” Naomi said quietly. “I don’t know why. It just does.”

Priya didn’t push, though Naomi could see her wanting to. Six years of watching this marriage from the outside had taught Priya exactly when pushing helped and when it just gave Naomi something to brace against instead of feel.

“What do you want to do?” Priya asked instead.

Naomi looked down at the legal pad, at Theo’s name underlined twice, at the shape of a plan starting to assemble itself out of fragments she didn’t fully trust yet.

“I want to see the study,” she said. “I want to see what’s actually in that room before anyone gets to tell me a version of it.”

“You’d have to go back there. To him.”

“I know.”

“He’ll know exactly why you’re coming.”

“I know that too.” Naomi closed the laptop. “I’m done being the only one in that marriage who didn’t know what was actually happening. If I have to walk back into that office to fix that, I will.”

The message came the next morning, before Naomi had even finished her coffee. Not from the unknown number this time.

From Julian.

I know you’re looking into the corrections records. I’d rather you hear the rest from me than from whatever you find on your own.

Naomi stared at the screen for a long time.

Come to the penthouse Thursday, the message continued. I’ll show you the study myself.

Why now, she typed back. You had eleven years to show anyone.

The reply took almost five minutes.

Because I think I finally want to know what’s actually in there too.

Naomi set the phone down on the counter, harder than she meant to.

Priya looked up from across the kitchen. “What did he say?”

“He wants to show me the study,” Naomi said. “Thursday.”

“That’s fast.”

“Too fast,” Naomi agreed. “Which means either he’s telling the truth and something actually shook him loose.”

“Or?”

Naomi looked back down at the phone, at his name still sitting at the top of the thread, and thought of the note in her coat pocket, and every other piece of this she still didn’t understand.

“Or he already knows exactly what’s in there,” she said, “and he wants to be the one standing next to me when I find out.”