All Chapters of THE STAND-IN WIFE: Three weeks,One lie,No way out: Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

ZARAMonday, 6:11pmThe three of them stood on the pavement outside the building and the city went past them like nothing had happened.Callum was on his phone. Richard's flight. Arrival time. Voice low, turned slightly away.Isla stood beside Zara with her coat pulled closed and her eyes on the middle distance.You knew, Zara said quietly. That someone would take the folder.Isla looked at her.I suspected, she said. I brought copies because I suspected.And the message this morning, Zara said. Telling you to wait.I've been receiving messages for three weeks, Isla said. Different numbers. Different phrasing. All of them telling me to hold off. She paused. I stopped asking who was sending them and started asking why they needed me to wait.And, Zara said.My waiting served someone else's timeline, Isla said. Not mine.Zara looked at the building behind them. The glass doors. The lobby visible through them, the event still continuing inside.She thought about the grey suit. Thirty-sev

ZARAMonday, 11:03pmThe hotel was the kind that had existed since the fifties and stopped trying to be anything other than what it was. Dark wood panelling. Carpet that had been good once. A bar off the lobby that served decent whisky and didn't ask questions.Richard Arch was already there.Third floor. A room booked under a name that wasn't his. He opened the door when they knocked and stood back without saying anything.Small room. A desk, a chair, a bed that hadn't been touched. On the desk a glass of water and a manila envelope, thick, sealed, placed there with the care of something carried a long way.Richard looked at them both.He looked older than he had at the West Village restaurant. Not in the way of a man who had aged. In the way of a man who had put something down that he'd been holding upright for a long time and the effort of it was now visible.Sit down, he said.They sat. Richard stayed standing.He looked at the envelope.I've been deciding how to begin this for tw

CALLUMTuesday, 9:14amGeoffrey Marsh had an office on the thirty-eighth floor of a building in the Financial District that he had occupied for eleven years.Callum had been in that office many times. Quarterly meetings. Drinks after difficult quarters. Conversations that started professional and ended personal because thirty years of knowing someone does that eventually.He knocked once. Opened the door without waiting.Geoffrey was at his desk but not working.The document in front of him was closed. His hands were folded on top of it. On the corner of the desk a glass of whisky, barely touched, at nine in the morning. His lawyer's business card was beside the phone with a number written on it in fresh ink.He didn't look up immediately.When he did there was nothing in his face that resembled surprise.Sit down, he said.Callum sat.You found the document, Geoffrey said.Yes.Richard brought it.Yes.Geoffrey nodded once.How much does she know, he said.Everything.He absorbed tha

ZARATuesday, 11:18amMarcus Webb was at a standing desk near the window when they found him. Headphones around his neck. A coffee going cold beside his laptop.He saw them coming from across the room.He didn't try to leave.Zara pulled a chair from the nearest empty desk and sat across from him. Callum stayed standing slightly behind her.You know who we are?Yes.We're not here about what you processed. We know you processed scheduling overrides using credentials that weren't yours to initiate. We know you didn't know what they were for. We know you're a conduit not a source.Marcus looked at his laptop screen. His coffee cup. His hands on the desk.We need one thing. The person who gave you the instructions directly. Not through the system. The person who spoke to you.A pause.Not a short one.If I give you a name, what happens to me?We're going to the regulator today, Callum said. Your name is already in the access logs. How it reads depends on what you do in the next four hour