Page 61 of You, Only You

His reply:

Or fewer words.

That sat on the screen for a moment. Then, before I could respond:

Goodnight. For real this time.

Goodnight for real.

I typed. Then added:

The eggs were actually perfect. Don't tell the pan I said that.

I put the phone down. Smiled at the ceiling and wondered what the future would bring.

Tomorrow would be hard. Tomorrow was always hard. But tonight, for the first time in a long time, hard felt like something I could carry. Not because it weighed less, but because I wasn't carrying it alone.

And that, my therapist would probably say if I still had one, was the whole point.

14.Will

Ihad faced down corporate predators, hostile witnesses, and men who would happily see me dead. None of it prepared me for the devastation of looking across a courtroom and finding an empty chair where she should have been.

The grand jury chamber was a windowless, wood-paneled room designed to feel like justice, or at least justice's waiting room. Twenty-three citizens sat in tiered rows, their faces carefully neutral, the way faces got when people were trying very hard to seem impartial. No cameras. No spectators except for a small gallery at the back. No defense attorneys to object or cross-examine. Just the prosecutor, the jurors, and whoever was unlucky enough to be on the stand.

Today, that was me.

"Please state your name and occupation for the record," Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Chen said, her voice the particular kind of crisp that came from years of asking questions she already knew the answers to.

"William Steele. I'm a senior partner at Sterling & Steele Law."

"And how did you become involved in the investigation of Meridian Tech and its executives?"

I settled into the familiar rhythm of testimony. Facts. Dates. The chain of evidence that had led us from suspicious financial transfers to a trafficking operation hiding behind corporate infrastructure. I'd done this hundreds of times. Depositions, trials, arbitration hearings. My voice was steady, my answers precise, my posture the exact degree of relaxed that communicated confidence without arrogance. This was the version of me I'd perfected over a decade. The courtroom version. The one that ran on autopilot while the rest of me stayed behind the glass.

"The initial irregularities came to light during a routine audit," I explained. "Payments from Meridian's discretionary fund that didn't match any documented business purpose. The amounts were relatively small, fifty thousand here, seventy-five thousand there, but the timing was suspicious."

"Suspicious how?"

"They correlated with shipping manifests for what was listed as 'equipment transfers.' But the destinations were residential properties, not warehouses or business locations."

Chen nodded, making a note. "And what did this suggest to you?"

"That someone was using corporate funds to move something other than equipment. Or someone."

My eyes drifted to the gallery. Not a decision. A reflex, the way your hand reaches for a railing before you've decided you're falling.

The small section of chairs held a handful of observers: a court reporter's assistant, two men in suits I didn't recognize, an older woman who might have been a law student taking notes.

No Lindsey.

I blinked. Refocused on Chen. "The forensic analysis confirmed the pattern. Every payment from the discretionaryfund preceded a documented transfer by exactly twenty-four to forty-eight hours."

"Who conducted this forensic analysis?"

"Lindsey Ashford. She's a certified forensic accountant with expertise in financial crime investigation."

Her name came out the way it was supposed to: clinical, professional, a name attached to credentials. It did not come out the way it existed in my head, which was attached to scrambled eggs at midnight and her voice saying it mattered and the look on her face on a balcony in Virginia when she'd told me to stop performing.