“I need thirty-six hours.”
“For what?”
“To understand the entire structure.”
Carolyn exhaled slowly.
“What do you need?”
“A forensic review of Derek and Cassie’s finances for the last five years. Loans, credit applications, business accounts, property records, everything your legal team can obtain through proper channels.”
“That will require emergency authorization.”
“Get it.”
“And the Chicago transfer?”
I gave her the routing information.
“Find out who controls the receiving account and why Derek needed fifty-five thousand dollars immediately.”
Carolyn’s tone changed.
“You believe he is under financial pressure.”
“I believe the house is a solution to a problem he has not explained.”
“I’ll activate the team.”
“One more thing. Keep the property filing ready, but do not serve it yet.”
“Eugene—”
“If Derek believes the transfer has failed, he changes his plan. I want him to arrive Monday believing I have packed.”
She knew me well enough to recognize when my mind was made up.
“I’ll call tomorrow night.”
After we disconnected, I assembled three cardboard moving boxes and placed them beside the front window.
From the road, anyone passing slowly would see exactly what Derek expected.
An old man obeying instructions.
Near sunset, my neighbor Hank Bowen knocked on the door carrying a foil-covered plate.
His wife had made too much pot roast.
Hank had lived across the road for thirty-one years. He wore the same Tennessee Volunteers cap almost every day and never asked questions unless he already had a reason.
He set the food on the entry table and looked at the moving boxes.
“You going somewhere?”
“Not if I can help it.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That black SUV this morning?”
I nodded.
Hank reached into his jacket pocket and removed a folded sheet of paper.
“I wrote this down because something felt wrong.”
The page contained dates and brief descriptions.
Derek at the house while my truck was gone.
Derek taking photographs from the street.
Derek walking along the side fence and looking through the windows.
The black SUV appearing twice before that morning.
“I should’ve said something sooner,” Hank said.
“You’re saying it now.”
“I saw Derek leave your place about three weeks ago in a hurry. The day the smoke alarm went off.”
My memory sharpened.
The staged stove incident.
Hank had witnessed Derek driving away.
“I need you to write a formal account of everything you saw.”
“I already did. That’s the paper.”
I looked at my friend.
“Monday morning, stay inside.”
“What’s happening Monday?”
“I’m going to let someone discover he misunderstood me.”
Hank studied my face.
Then he nodded once.
“All right.”
The following morning, I called Cassie again.
I told her I had found Margaret’s photograph albums and could not bear to leave them behind.
“Can I bring them to you?” I asked. “The facility only allows two bags.”
She hesitated, then agreed.
“Come before nine. Derek has calls.”
I placed the albums inside a wooden box and drove across Knoxville before commuter traffic thickened on Interstate 40.
Cassie and Derek lived on the fourteenth floor of Riverside Tower. The lobby smelled faintly of citrus and polished stone. A valet took my pickup keys with visible surprise.
In the mirrored elevator, I watched my own reflection.
I rounded my shoulders.
Shortened my steps.
Softened my eyes.
By the time the doors opened, I looked like the version of me Derek had created for Cassie.
She opened the apartment door before I knocked.
Her hair was pulled back, and she wore a silk blouse with dark trousers. She looked polished and tired.
“Put the box near the bookcase,” she said.
The penthouse was expensive without feeling warm. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the river. Pale furniture sat at precise angles. Nothing appeared touched long enough to acquire meaning.
A framed photograph hung above the television.
Margaret, Cassie, and me standing near the rose bushes when Cassie was eight.
Margaret was laughing.
Cassie was squinting into the sun.
I had been caught in the middle of a sentence.
Seeing it there nearly broke my performance.
“Your mother looks happy,” I said.
Cassie followed my gaze.
“She was.”
Her phone rang.
She checked the screen, and her shoulders tightened.
“I need to take this.”
She moved into the kitchen.
While she spoke quietly near the windows, I walked toward the sectional sofa and sat down, reaching beneath the frame as though searching for support.
A miniature recorder slid from my sleeve into my palm.
I pressed it beneath the wooden crosspiece.
The device had originally been used to capture field notes during equipment inspections. It could record for nearly four days.
I placed a second device beneath the side table in Derek’s office while pretending to use the guest bathroom.
Then I returned to the photograph box and rearranged the albums until Cassie came back.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No need.”