Damian Voss did not remember most of his life before he was twenty- nine, and he had built an entire personality around not thinking about that fact. It helped that he was extremely good at his job, and his job left very little room for reflection. Voss Capital had grown from a modest infrastructure fund into a firm that moved billions through real estate, energy, and municipal contracts across four continents, and all of that growth had happened in under two years, a pace that made competitors nervous and journalists suspicious and Damian himself, if he was honest in the rare moments he allowed himself honesty, a little dizzy. Tonight he stood in the mirror of his penthouse dressing room adjusting a tie that his chief of staff had already told him twice was crooked, and he studied his own reflection with the mild detachment of a man looking at a photograph of someone he’d once met. “You’re doing the thing again,” said Simone Achebe from the doorway, arms crossed, dressed for the gala i

Getting the meeting turned out to be easier than Elena expected, which should have worried her more than it did. She sent a brief, professional email to the general contact address listed on the Voss Capital website, referencing the pediatric wing bid, requesting fifteen minutes to discuss potential future collaboration on the firm’s other restoration projects. She expected a form response from an assistant, if anything at all. Instead, less than six hours later, she received a reply from Simone Achebe herself, offering a slot the following Tuesday at ten in the morning, thirty minutes, at the Voss Capital offices downtown. “That’s fast,” Nadia said, reading the email over Elena’s shoulder. “Suspiciously fast, for a guy who’s supposedly running a multi billion dollar fund.” “Maybe he’s just efficient.” “Maybe. Or maybe someone told him a woman matching your description was staring at him at the gala, and he wants to know why.” The thought had occurred to Elena too, somewhere in the sl

Simone found him still at his desk when she arrived at seven, the coffee she'd brought going cold in her hand the moment she saw his face."You look like you haven't slept," she said carefully, setting the cup down in front of him anyway, an old habit neither of them had ever bothered to break."I haven't." Damian turned his laptop around so the screen faced her, the wedding photograph still open, the caption beneath it glowing in the gray morning light filtering through the windows. "I need you to look at this and tell me you didn't already know."Simone's face did not change immediately, which told him almost as much as if it had. She looked at the screen for exactly three seconds, long enough to register what she was looking at, and then she looked back at him, and something in her posture shifted, the careful armor of the last eighteen months settling more heavily onto her shoulders."Sit down," he said, when she didn't move. "Please."She sat."Elena Marie Vance," he read aloud,

Elena spent the drive home trying to remember the exact wording of the autopsy report, the one she'd filed away in a box in her closet three years ago and never opened again, and by the time she pulled into her driveway she'd already decided she was going to dig it out that night no matter how late it kept her up.She found the box exactly where she'd left it, on the top shelf of her bedroom closet, behind a stack of photo albums she also hadn't opened in three years. Her hands shook as she pulled the lid off, and the smell that rose up, old paper, faint mildew from a basement flood two winters back, hit her with a wave of grief so immediate and physical that she had to sit down on the edge of her bed before she could continue.The autopsy report was near the bottom, beneath the funeral home's itemized bill and a folder of sympathy cards she'd never had the heart to throw away. She pulled it out and spread the pages across her comforter, forcing herself to read slowly this time, the w

Elena didn't hear her phone ring. She was standing in her living room with the lights off, staring at the front door, which she had just discovered standing very slightly ajar, though she was absolutely certain she had locked it that morning, the way she'd locked it every morning since Nadia's warning three days ago."Hello?" she called into the darkness, though every instinct told her the apartment was already empty, that whatever had happened here had already finished happening before she'd walked through the door.Nothing answered. No sound came from the bedroom, the kitchen, the small office where she kept her files. She moved through the apartment slowly, her heart hammering, checking each room in turn, and found nothing disturbed except one thing: the box from her closet, the one containing the autopsy report and the funeral paperwork, which she had left sitting out on her bed that morning, was gone.Not overturned. Not rifled through and left behind. Gone entirely, along with t