Page 33 of Cruel Lies

"Stream five starts to make the picture clear. We've got text messages. Lots of them. The overlap with the school pickup line timestamps is fascinating, if you ask me.Can't wait 2 c u. Wat r u wearing today? i hope nothing under that skirt.You gentlemen get the idea. I won't read them all out loud. Some of them aren't suitable for a work setting." I pause and purse my lips like I'm deep in thought, then add, "Though I suppose neither was the activity they describe."

Somebody at the table coughs. Todd has both hands flat on the table now, like he's trying to hold himself down. "Cali, for God's sake."

I keep going, ignoring him totally. It's a miracle anyone in the room can still breathe, because all the oxygen seems to be gone. "The other party in these messages is also someone I've known for fifteen years. My son's teacher, as it happens. And, until recently, my best friend." I smile. "It really is a small world, isn't it?"

Click.

"Streams six and seven." A document unfurls across the screens, clean and official, full of signature lines and DocuSign stamps. "Paperwork. The first element is a lease for that charming Murray Hill bachelor pad I mentioned. The second is a retainer agreement with a law firm, based off a template historically used for aggressive divorce cases. The third and fourth bits—and this will be interesting for you all as bankers—form a Delaware LLC, listed as 'Bradshaw Holdings,' whose sole purpose will be to hold what it calls a 'founder's interest' in a data sciences company."I let my eyes travel slowly around the table. "Mycompany. The one whose product you're all watching right now."

"This is—you can't—" Todd is half out of his chair now. "This is aprivatematter. This is myfamily?—"

Click.

"Last but not least: Stream eight."

Travel reservations light up the room, two of them, side-by-side, with the changes clearly highlighted.

"Eleven days ago, my husband modified our tenth-anniversary travel plans. You'll note that my name was removed, and the name of my son's fourth grade teacher, Paula Sampson, was inserted."

I click one more time, and the screen goes dark as the slideshow ends.

"The engine works," I say in a soft voice into the stunned silence. "I built it to catch supply-chain fraud." With a deep breath, I conclude, "Turns out it works just as well on a cheating husband."

I turn to Todd and give him my best smile.

"What do you think, honey? Wanna invest?"

9

RONAN

I've never seen something so perfect in my whole fucking life.

And to think I only ended up in this room by sheer luck.

I was not supposed to be at Whitmore Stearns. I had a full day planned. Three meetings on the books, and only two of them were legal.

But none of that mattered the second Crosby Hess walked past my office door with his coat already on.

Crosby is one of the partners at my firm. A real lawyer, one of the few in the building who actually practices. He keeps the lights on so the rest of my organization can do what it really does in the dark. He's the one who called in a favor weeks ago and asked me to meet with Todd Bradshaw.

Ever since I said yes, I've regretted it.

Not because of the work. If I'd been so inclined, it would've been easy to do. Freeze the accounts, serve the papers, gut the wife before she even knew the knife had been drawn. I've done worse for worse men.

But then I met her.

I didn't know it was her at the time. That night, she was just an intriguing woman in a little black dress with a dirty martini and a filthier mouth.Men are pieces of shit. My husband is about to have a very bad year.

How can a man like me meet a woman like that andnotthink about her in every spare minute that follows?

I didn't put two and two together right away. Men come into my office all the time asking for dark favors, and I've spoken to plenty of women in bars all across the city who have similarly dim views of my sex. Some of them are even almost as attractive as the one from Saturday night.

Besides, Manhattan is a big place. What're the odds that the two of them were connected?

But it's also a small one, and my gut doesn't lie to me. I had a feeling.

I'm glad I followed it.