“You’re looking for war.”
“She started one.”
“And she has been preparing longer than you have.”
He was right.
But I went anyway.
Penelope’s townhouse was immaculate. Cream walls. Antique mirrors. Marble floors. A grand piano nobody played.
It smelled faintly of lilies, even with her gone.
Her study sat behind double pocket doors, hidden beyond a sitting room lined with portraits of dead Sterlingtons who all seemed to disapprove of me.
The desk was locked.
The locksmith opened it in under two minutes.
Inside, we found files.
Not many.
Just enough.
Folders labeled with names.
SOPHIE.
NICHOLAS.
JULIAN.
My skin prickled.
I opened Sophie’s folder first.
Printed medical articles about postpartum psychosis.
Copies of Sophie’s therapy invoices from years before we met.
Photographs of her crying in the garden, taken through windows.
A draft email addressed from Sophie to me, never sent, filled with chaotic apologies she had not written.
At the bottom was a psychiatric evaluation.
Fake.
But convincing.
With a forged signature from a doctor Sophie had never seen.
I opened my file next.
Photos of me leaving hotels during business trips.
Perfectly innocent.
Perfectly angled to appear otherwise.
A list of female colleagues.
Notes beside their names.
