"Say it again," Elara said.
Diana looked at her across the small café table. Her hands were steady now — the hands of a woman who had made her decision and would not unmake it. "Marcus Webb," she said. "He was driving the car."
Elara had heard the name before. Everyone in their world had. Marcus Webb — CEO of Reid Enterprises for eleven years. Callum's most trusted man. The person Callum had called a brother in the speech at the company's tenth anniversary gala.
She kept her face absolutely still.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Because three weeks after the accident," Diana said, "Marcus came to the house. Callum was still in the hospital. I was alone." She folded her hands on the table. "He came to ask how Callum was doing — or that's what he said. But I'd been awake for four nights straight, Elara. I was not myself. And he said something. He said—" She paused. "He said, 'I didn't mean for it to go this far. I only wanted to scare him.' And then he stopped himself. And then he said, 'I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. I'm exhausted.' And he left."
The espresso machine behind the counter ground and hissed.
"You've sat on this for three months," Elara said quietly.
"I told myself I'd misheard. I told myself he was upset, grieving, speaking without thinking." Diana's voice didn't waver but her eyes did. "I was a coward. Again."
"Why now?"
Diana reached into her coat and placed a small USB drive on the table between them. "Because last week I found this in the desk in Callum's home study. Hidden inside a hollowed book. It's not mine. It's not Callum's." She looked at it. "I don't know what's on it. I was afraid to look alone."
Elara stared at the drive.
Somewhere across the city, her phone was receiving a message from a number she didn't recognize, telling her someone already knew what Diana had said.
She picked up the drive.
"I need twenty-four hours," she said.
"Elara—"
"Don't tell Callum. Don't tell anyone. Give me twenty-four hours, Diana."
Diana nodded once.
Elara put the drive in her pocket, stood, and walked out of the café into the grey November morning. She didn't run. She never ran. But her mind was already moving at a sprint, cataloguing everything she knew about Marcus Webb — his access, his motives, his eleven years of proximity to a man worth a great deal of money.
And his proximity to Victoria Ashford.
Because that was the piece Diana didn't know. The piece Elara had noticed three years ago and filed away and never thought to use.
Marcus Webb and Victoria Ashford had known each other long before Callum had ever introduced them.
She was halfway to her car when the unknown number called again.
She answered this time. "Who is this?"
A man's voice. Calm. Deliberate. "Someone who knows exactly what's on that drive. And someone who knows you just put it in your pocket." A pause. "Don't go to the police, Ms. Voss. Not yet. Meet me tonight. Alone. I'll send the location." Another pause. "And I'd suggest you move quickly. Victoria has people watching Diana."
The line went dead.
Elara stood on the pavement and looked up slowly, scanning the street. A black car, parked across the road, engine running.
A
s she watched, it pulled away