Chapter 16: The Buyout

Glenn found it at six on Saturday morning, and he found it with his hands over his mouth.

"Don't scream," Dani said.

"I'm not going to scream."

"You're making a noise."

"It's a happy noise."

He turned his laptop around on her desk by the window.

On the screen was a list of files from Halloway's legal folder, each with a small gray line of dates beside it.

One of them said Perpetual Assignment, final.pdf.

"Look at when it was made," Glenn said.

Dani looked.

Created: Friday, 10:41 a.m.

The Friday of the divorce.

"Forty-three minutes after you signed the papers," Glenn said. "Not six years ago."

"Whose login?"

"Tatum's. From a tablet registered to Preston."

She sat very still.

Forty-three minutes after she had walked out of the penthouse in her old jeans, Tatum had been typing her name onto a contract.

"Can he delete it?"

"He can try," Glenn said. "I copied the log twice. One copy is in a box at a bank."

"And the other?"

"In my sock." He grinned. "I'm not proud."

For a second the old warmth came up in her chest.

Then Nolan came in from the elevator, and it went away again.

He nodded to her, and she nodded back.

It had been that way for a week.

Polite, precise and cold.

"He's downstairs," Nolan said.

"Who?"

"Preston. With two lawyers."

Glenn shut the laptop so fast it slapped.

Preston Halloway walked onto the Stroud Labs floor.

His charcoal suit was perfect and his hair was flat and he smiled at the engineers.

Eleven of them stopped typing.

"Nolan," he said. "Do you have a minute?"

"I have two."

"Good. I won't need more."

He did not look at Dani.

He looked at her desk and at her keyboard.