Page 58 of His Wall

The document on the screen in front of me was a working theory of the same fraud, written by Julian Cross, from the inside, building a case against Conrad.

I did not let myself land yet.

I had spent fifteen months on Conrad Weiss. The Bureau's read stood until evidence said otherwise. This wasn't that. He was investigating — fine. That didn't make him clean. Guilty men built maps too, especially when they could see the case coming and needed something to trade.

But.

Was I really looking at a man positioning for a plea?

I scrolled back to the NOTES document. I read it again. The handwriting. The structure. The question at the bottom — Does the firm's exposure end at the founders or extend to the partners who joined after? It was a question a man asked when he was trying to figure out how to protect his partners.

I closed the folder. I closed the directory. I wiped the keys with the corner of my sleeve. I stood. I crossed to the door. I pulled it closed behind me — fully.

I walked the hallway. I rode the elevator down.

I lifted my hand at Reggie. I pushed through the glass doors onto the sidewalk.

The night was warm. I walked half a block. I stopped at the corner under the streetlight.

I pulled my phone out. I opened the camera roll. I scrolled through the photographs. Twenty-three of them. The Bureau's case made in twenty-three image files.

I opened my secure messaging client. Harlow's contact was at the top. All I had to do was attach. Hit send.

My thumb hovered.

I looked at the photographs again.

The maps. The annotations in his handwriting. The question about the partners. The five-page theory document with the line JC unaware at time of build in his own handwriting.

A man who had been guilty did not write unaware about himself in a private document no one else was ever supposed to read.

A man who had been guilty did not investigate his own laundering alone in a locked drawer.

A man who had been guilty did not ask whether the firm's exposure extended to the partners he loved.

I did not know yet what he was. The Bureau's read had been the read for fifteen months and one folder on a private drive did not undo fifteen months. But the read had cracked. The read had cracked and I was standing on a sidewalk with my thumb over the send button and I could not, for the life of me, send.

I locked the screen.

The screen lit up again in my hand.

Julian Cross.

The phone was ringing.

I stared at the screen for one beat. Two.

I answered.

"Claire."

His voice was different. There was no charm in it. None of the smooth careful voice from the gala when he had lied to me.

"Julian."

"I'm sorry to call this late."

"It's all right."