The charity project ended on Friday afternoon.Last session in the offices of the foundation. The six partner organizations were in the main room. Roxanne's firm had been offering the company consultancy for three months, covering strategy, growth planning and the operational structure. The formal handover of the session took place. Each partner organization had to present its workings and plans for the material constructed as a result of the consultation.Roxanne sat on the side of the room and heard all six presentations.They were good.Not polished as in the corporate sense. Real. The specific quality of those who had gone through something tough and were talking about what had come out of it. A female business owner of a small logistics business with a workforce of fourteen ex-offenders discussed how she has set up her company based on the recommendations made in the consultation. A construction training program owner explained the expansion of his capacity through the growth pla

The argument came on Tuesday evening.Not as a single incident. Not so much a result of one thing leading to another in the evening but a sense of how more little bits of arguments had been accumulating over weeks and then had the right moment to come out on the evening that they were meant to come out.Robert arrived at home at nine. He had been on a call with Chen over the network mapping which went longer than planned. It was seven when he sent a message.Roxanne was sitting on the sofa, using her laptop. Clara had already gone down.He was sitting across from her.She turned off the computer.“I want to say something," she said.“Come on," he said, "go ahead.”“All the photos, the reporting, how the last two weeks have been.” She held his gaze. “I have been observing you as you have been handling it all and I have really been impressed with how you have been doing it. But I want to know what you're not saying.”“I've been telling you everything," he said.“You've been telling me t

It was a Wednesday, which was the first time in three months that Leonard Hayes has made an external contact.Not the normal paths. Not by his lawyer, nor by the federal communications system that was supervised as part of his custody. The mechanism was discovered four days after its use by Chen's team.A message. Passed through a legitimate legal correspondence channel that had no known connection to Leonard Hayes that was part of a law firm. The firm had previously been used in another property deal years before his arrest, but through a number of intermediaries. The relationship was so weak that it could not be seen in the original case records.It was a Sunday morning when Chen phoned Robert.Robert was sitting at a table with Clara on his lap. Clara was working diligently on a board book. He responded with his free hand, holding Clara with his other.“Leonard reached out to someone out there,” Chen said."Who?" Robert said.“It's a financial operator in Geneva,” Chen said. “It's

Roxanne saw it on a Monday morning.When she was at her laptop in front of the kitchen table, she paused and sat back. Robert lifted his head from the island."You all right?" he said."Tired," she said.He looked at her. She had her hand flat on the table in front of her. Not doing anything. Simply, placing it there.He told her to go back to bed.“It's time for me to attend my nine o’clock meeting,” she answered."Move it," he said.She didn't move it. She drank her coffee and then went to her office and returned home at six o'clock. Robert made dinner. She ate half of it."Come back here, you're not feeling well," he said.“Yes I am fine,” she said. "I am just tired."He glanced across the table at her.She gazed at him."I have been tired before," she said.“Not like this," he said.She wasn't about to challenge that.By Wednesday, the fatigue had companion. A particular morning sickness that came at mornings and sat with her all day into the first two hours. She refused to tell R

It was Saturday, and it was like a morning that didn't know it was different from other mornings.At six o'clock, it was time for Robert to get up. Clara wasn't awake yet. He was making coffee, and standing at the kitchen window watching the city below. Gray early light of a December morning.He had slept well.Better sleeping than he had done for weeks. The special clean sleep that is experienced by those who have had something good come along and temporarily take the place of anything else that had been in their way.After dinner he lay beside Roxanne, who was asleep within twenty minutes, and he glanced up at the ceiling for a while, but he did not think about anything he usually did at night. He had considered a little room. A crib next to the existing crib that is already in the penthouse. The sound of two children breathing.He was asleep while he had that thing in his mind.He was standing in front of the window, holding a cup of coffee.Roxanne came into the kitchen door. She