“Three point two.”
“And Ethan knew you were looking into this?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you said he found out about the audit.”
“He saw an email.”
The memory returned without warning.
I had been standing in the pantry, my laptop open on the counter.
Ethan came home early.
He was unusually cheerful.
He carried a bottle of champagne and said we’d been invited to a dinner with a state housing commissioner.
Then he saw the screen.
A single line in an email from Halden.
We have concerns regarding the Northline-linked disbursements and recommend immediate preservation of records.
The champagne bottle had remained unopened.
The kitchen had become very quiet.
“Who are they?” he asked.
I closed the laptop.
“Consultants.”
“For what?”
“Something I’m reviewing.”
“For Apex?”
I had known then.
Not that he was guilty of anything financial.
I still didn’t know that.
But I had known his fear was real.
Not anger.
Fear.
“They recommended preserving records,” I told Ruiz. “Ethan asked for my password.”
“And when you refused?”
My fingers tightened against the hospital blanket.
“Yes.”
No one asked me to describe the rest.
Not yet.
For that, I was grateful.
Ruiz wrote several more notes.
Then she closed the book.
“I need to be very clear about something, Maya. The assault investigation and any possible financial misconduct are separate issues. One does not have to prove the other.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“Will you take Liam’s drive?”
“With his consent, and with appropriate documentation. But depending on what’s on it, other investigators may become involved.”
I nodded.
“There’s also a cloud archive.”
Liam turned toward me.
“You told me you didn’t trust cloud storage.”
“I didn’t trust my devices.”
A strange silence followed.
“Maya,” he said carefully, “where is the archive?”
“I created it through Halden. They have the access protocol.”
His expression shifted from concern to something closer to frustration.
“You gave a private firm all of this?”
“Not the medical evidence. The financial records.”
“You should have told me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve spent six months terrified that every text you sent me might be the last one.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Ruiz rose.
“I’ll give you a few minutes.”
She spoke briefly to Priya and left.
Liam waited until the door shut.
Then he looked at me.
I had seen my brother angry many times.
At residents who falsified notes.
At insurance companies that denied emergency procedures.
At himself when our father’s diagnosis came too late for treatment.
This was different.
This anger had nowhere to go.
“You told me you were making a plan,” he said.
“I was.”
“You told me you had an apartment arranged.”
“I did.”
“You said you were leaving Friday.”
“I was.”
“Today is Thursday, Maya.”
I turned my face away.
“I know.”
He stood and walked to the sink.
For a moment, all I could see was his back.
“I almost came to the house last night.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“You stopped answering me.”
“What time?”
“A little after eleven.”
Ethan had taken my phone around ten.
I remembered him seeing the Halden email.
Remembered the argument moving from the pantry to the kitchen.
After that, time blurred.
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
Liam gripped the edge of the sink.
“Because you had told me, repeatedly, not to confront him. You said if I showed up, he’d know you were planning to leave.”
My chest hurt for a reason that had nothing to do with my ribs.
“I was right.”
“You were lying unconscious on a kitchen floor.”
“I know.”
“I sat in my car with my keys in my hand and told myself I was respecting your plan.”
“Liam.”
“I should have gone.”
“You don’t know what would have happened.”
“Exactly.”
He turned around.
His eyes were red.
“My whole career is built around acting when something is wrong. I don’t wait for perfect certainty. I don’t ask a bleeding person to produce a six-month report proving why they deserve help.”
“I wasn’t your patient.”
“You’re my sister.”
The words cracked between us.
I flinched.
Liam saw it.
Regret crossed his face immediately.
He sat down again.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at the blanket.
“No. You’re right.”
“I didn’t say you were wrong.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Maya.”
“I thought if I did everything correctly, he couldn’t change the story.”
My voice sounded thin.
“I thought if I had enough photographs, enough texts, enough statements from doctors, enough money set aside, enough company records, enough everything, then when I left, there would be no version of events where he could make me look irrational.”
Liam said nothing.
“That was stupid.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It was survival.”
“I used to investigate fraud cases where executives deleted emails after receiving preservation orders. Do you know what I would tell them?”
He shook his head.
“That timing matters. That delay destroys options.”
A tear slipped into my hair.
