Rain streaked the windows. Slow at first, then faster, the drops catching the light from the bar and holding it before they ran.
Arianne's glass was empty. She'd been turning it in her fingers without noticing. The timeline lay rolled beside it. Layla's photographs still spread in two neat rows—twelve locations, twelve proofs that also in the car had been a lie.
Nate hadn't spoken in a while.
He wasn't brooding. Nate didn't brood. He waited—the way he waited for a pour to settle, for a regular to leave before asking what was really wrong, for the shape of something to surface in his head before he opened his mouth.
Now he reached into his jacket. Pulled out his phone. Set it on the table between the glasses.
"I went back through some old files," he said. "After Julian's timeline. Something was nagging at me."
He tapped the screen.
"Financial gossip column. Five years ago. Six, maybe. Right around the engagement."
He looked at Arianne.
