Chapter 1 ·

Chapter One

She was the last person to see him alive and the first to find him dead.

She gave a clean statement. She didn't cry. She went home, stood in the shower until the water ran cold, and started making a list.

Not of suspects. Of everything she'd chosen not to know.

There was a long list. She had always been good at not knowing things. It was, professionally speaking, one of her better skills — the careful management of what she looked at directly and what she kept at the edge of vision, soft and unresolved. You couldn't be Head of Communications for a company like Vantage and know everything. You could be competent, or you could be comfortable. She had chosen comfortable and built a career around the seams of that choice.

The detective had asked her, at the end of the interview: is there anything else you'd like to add?

She had said no.

There was a lot she'd like to add. She hadn't decided yet whether any of it was survivable.