บททั้งหมดของ The Barren Wife's Revenge : บทที่ 71 - บทที่ 80

Samuel was already in the conference room when Nora and Lore walked in.He stood when they entered. He had a thin envelope on the table in front of him, smaller than the one from the church."Ms. Bishop," he said.Nora nodded. She sat across from him. The phone in her pocket felt heavier than it had ten minutes ago, which made no sense, but she noticed it anyway.Lore sat at the head of the table. "Mr. Park. You indicated you'd provide the remainder of the companion file with Ms. Bishop present.""Yes." Samuel didn't reach for the envelope yet. He was looking at Nora. "You're somewhere else this morning.""I'm here," Nora said."You're here. You're also somewhere else." He said it plainly, not as a challenge. "I've spent four years reading rooms for a living. I know what distracted looks like versus what afraid looks like versus what deciding looks like. You're doing the first one."Lore glanced between them."It's not relevant to this meeting," Nora said."It might be. If it's about

Adrian arrived at eleven exactly.He'd started doing that. Not a minute early, not a minute late. Nora had noticed it the second visit and hadn't said anything about it. This time he'd brought a small bag, something Rachel took from him at the door without either of them commenting on it.He sat on the floor near Hope, same as the first time. He didn't reach for her right away. He let her get used to the room having a new shape in it. Vivian stayed in the kitchen. Nora sat in the chair across from him with a mug she wasn't drinking from."She's gotten heavier," Adrian said. "Since last week.""Two pounds since the appointment on Thursday.""That's fast.""That's normal. They double their weight in the first few months." Nora watched him take that in. "You can pick her up, if you want."He looked at her. "You've said that before I offered.""You always wait for me to say it. I got tired of waiting for you to ask."Adrian reached in and lifted Hope carefully, one hand under her head out

The apartment smelled like formula and the coffee Nora hadn't finished. She'd been staring at the same page of her deposition notes for twenty minutes. Vivian was in the other room with Hope, both of them asleep. Rachel had gone to her office to prep for tomorrow's 11 a.m. statement.Nora heard the knock before the bell.She checked the time. 8:47 p.m. She knew who it was.Adrian stood in the hallway with his hands shoved in his coat pockets and rain on his shoulders. He didn't ask if he could come in. He stepped past her before she could decide."We need to talk about the move," he said."Come in, Adrian.""I am in." He turned. "Vivian here?""Asleep. Hope's asleep.""Then we talk fast." He pulled his hands out of his pockets. "I have a contact. Former Sentinel Risk person who left about a year ago. She runs a private security firm now—small, clean, not connected to anything Cross touched. She has a safe property in Riverside County. Single-family house, backed up to protected land,

The news hit at 11:47 a.m.Nora was sitting in Rachel's kitchen, Hope asleep against her chest, Vivian reading something on her phone with the volume off when Vivian's hand went slack. She looked up."They're releasing it," Vivian said. "All fourteen pages. Lore went to the press himself. The companion file, the senator's name, Webb's son, and—" She scrolled. "This. This is Rachel's contact."Nora didn't ask. She listened."The contact worked in Webb's office fifteen years ago," Vivian kept reading. "Webb told him directly: 'Rule for us on Hart cases, and we keep your daughter's drug charge off the record.' Full quote. The state attorney's office is releasing office correspondence dated the same days as thirteen Hart-connected rulings. Thirteen cases where Webb's decisions came down within 48 hours of Cross operatives contacting the office."Rachel came in from the bedroom where she'd been on call with her contact. Her face was white."He gave them everything," Rachel said. "Phone log

Adrian didn't see the car until he was halfway down the drive. No headlights. Lore had pulled into the tree line at the property's edge, far enough back that she wasn't visible from the house. The Riverside property's isolation worked both directions—no neighbors to see Webb's PI, and no one to see Lore if she wanted to stay invisible.He checked his phone. 6:28 a.m. Still dark. The forest around them was the color of old concrete.Lore was already out of the car. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, or different ones that looked identical—dark jacket, messenger bag slung across her chest, no coffee in her hands. She didn't sleep, Adrian had decided. She moved through cases the way other people moved through rooms, seeing information the rest of them couldn't access."Webb moved assets at 11:47 p.m. last night," Lore said before Adrian reached her. "Seventeen million. Offshore to a shell with a 48-hour clearing window before it hits a secondary account we can't trace.""He's