“Show him.”
Julian hesitated.
That brief pause frightened me more than the accusation.
“What’s on the drive?” I asked.
“A recording.”
“Of Ava?”
“Of all three of us.”
Brooke looked startled.
“What do you mean, all three?”
Julian’s eyes moved to her.
“You thought you were only helping your sister hide an affair?”
Brooke’s face lost color.
Ava laughed.
It was sharp and false and gone too quickly.
“There it is. That’s what Julian does. He makes everyone suspicious of everyone else until nobody remembers he started the fire.”
Julian placed the flash drive on the coffee table.
“I didn’t start it.”
“Then who did?” I asked.
No one answered.
That was the problem with the room. Three people knew pieces of the truth, and each piece had been sharpened into a weapon. I had spent months thinking I was being excluded from my own marriage. Now I understood I had been excluded from an entire map.
I picked up the drive.
Ava closed her hand around my wrist.
“Ryan, don’t.”
Her voice had changed.
Not angry.
Not mocking.
Almost pleading.
I looked down at her fingers until she released me.
“What exactly are you afraid I’ll hear?”
She swallowed.
“Pieces without context.”
Julian shook his head.
“You’ll hear her plan.”
Brooke glanced toward the stairs.
“My old tablet is upstairs. We can play it.”
“No,” Ava said.
Brooke looked at her sister.
“Why not?”
“Because I said no.”
The command came out hard enough to make Brooke step back.
I had seen Ava angry before. I had seen her throw words like knives and then spend three days pretending I had walked into them. But I had never seen her afraid of sound.
That was what this was.
She was not afraid of the drive.
She was afraid of hearing herself fill the house.
Brooke brought the tablet down anyway.
Julian inserted the drive.
One audio file appeared on the screen.
The date was six months earlier.
The filename contained only three letters.
RJM.
My initials.
I pressed play.
At first, there was only background noise.
Glassware.
Muted music.
A low hum of air-conditioning.
Then Ava spoke.
“He’ll sign anything if I slide it in with the refinancing documents.”
Julian’s recorded voice answered.
“You’re underestimating him.”
“I’ve been married to him for ten years. I know what Ryan notices.”
A third voice entered.
Brooke’s.
“What if the bank calls him?”
Brooke covered her mouth.
“I didn’t say that,” she whispered.
But the recording continued.
Ava sounded amused.
“They won’t call until after the transfer.”
“And after that?” Brooke asked.
“After that, it won’t matter.”
Julian’s voice came next.
“You still haven’t explained where Ryan is supposed to be when the account collapses.”
Ava answered without hesitation.
“Out of town.”
The file ended after thirty-nine seconds.
I stared at the blank screen.
Brooke shook her head again and again.
“No. That conversation was not about this.”
Julian watched her.
“What was it about?”
“I don’t know, but that’s not the full conversation.”
Ava seized the opening.
“Exactly.”