Chapter 1

Lily Cooper had lost weight.

Three years had passed since I'd last seen her. Now she stood outside my company's building, wearing a gray sweater covered in pills, a two-year-old child tugging at her hand.

The wind whipped her hair across her face. She hadn't bothered to comb it.

The old Lily would never have looked like that. Back then, she wouldn't leave the house without at least forty minutes in front of the mirror.

I stood by the third-floor window and watched her for two minutes. Then I had the receptionist bring her up.

The moment she sat down, her eyes turned red. "Victoria, I..."

I poured her a glass of water.

"Take your time," I said, my voice even.

She had no idea that I had been waiting for this day for three years.

She had no idea that in the right-hand drawer of my desk, there was a manila envelope that had been waiting just as long.

*****

Three years ago. April 17, 2023.

I remember the date because it was my eighth wedding anniversary with Matthew Flores.

I left work early and went to the grocery store to get the beef shank he liked. I was going to make braised beef.

I also picked up a bottle of red wine, nothing fancy, about thirty bucks, but he'd said that brand was good.

I got home at six ten.

I opened the door. No one was there.

I figured he was working late, so I called him.

His phone was off.

I didn't think much of it. I put the groceries down and started cooking.

By seven, he wasn't back.

By eight, his phone was still off.

I started calling his coworkers.

"Matthew?" one of them said. "He took leave today. He said something came up at home."

I froze. Then I opened our banking app.

The main account balance: one hundred nine dollars.

I stared at the number again and again.

One hundred nine.

There should have been over a million and a half in that account.

My hand started shaking. I pulled up the transaction history.

April fifteenth, six hundred thousand dollars transferred out. April sixteenth, five hundred thousand transferred out. April seventeenth, today, four hundred ninety-three thousand dollars.

I read the recipient's name.

Three transfers were all to Lily.

My fingers went numb. I almost dropped my phone.

No. What about my secondary card? I checked again.

Last month, there had been almost forty hundred dollars on it.

Balance zero.

I sat down at the dining table. The braised beef was bubbling away in the pot. The wine was still unopened.

I dialed Lily's number and got her voicemail. Same with Matthew.

I scrolled to the top of my call log and tried them both again.

Both went straight to voicemail.

The beef was done, but I didn't touch it.

The kitchen light stayed on. I'd forgotten to turn on the living room light.

I just sat there, half in the light, half in the dark.

My phone screen went black, then lit up, then went black again.

Sometime after two in the morning, I stood up and threw out the beef.

I scrubbed the pot clean and wiped down the stove.

Then I went into the bedroom, took Matthew's pillow off the bed, and put it in the closet.

It wasn't anger. It was that moment when everything just clicked.

It was like a door that had been locked from the outside.

I pushed against it, but it didn't move. Then I realized the doorframe was brand new. It had been swapped out a long time ago.

I didn't cry that night.

My dad'd been gone two years. My mom went even earlier.

I sat in the dark and thought that now, it was really just me.

*****

I'd known Lily for twelve years.

The summer of 2011. We started as receptionists at the same company. She was a year older than me, chubby, with a crescent-moon smile that made her feel like family right away.

On my first day at work, I didn't even know how to use the printer.

Lily helped me change the toner cartridge and bought me a cup of coffee.

"You're too honest," she said. "Stick with me. I'll make sure you don't get screwed over here."

And she did. When people talked behind my back, she was the first to shut them down.

When a manager gave me attitude, she stepped in.

One time at a company dinner, a male manager got a little drunk and put his arm around my shoulder.

Lily just yanked it off him. "What the hell do you think you're touching?"

Back then, I thought Lily was the sister the universe had sent me.

My mom died young. My dad raised me alone. I never had siblings. Lily was the first person in my life who made me feel like someone had my back.

Later, I left for another job with better pay.