Chapter 11: Filed First

Thane read the email over my shoulder, naked to the waist, with his hand flat on my back.

"Eleven photos," he said. "Two nights."

"Friday I slept in your guest room," I said. "Last night is the only one that counts."

"And the audit closed yesterday."

"So the worst thing in these pictures is a woman walking into a building where she was cleared of a crime."

He almost laughed.

Then he picked up his own phone and made a call, and I heard him say what I had not expected him to say.

"Madam Chair, it's Thane Rayburn. I'm recusing myself from the final report effective immediately."

"I was involved with Ms. Prewitt. Yes, since last night."

"No. Not before. I'll put it in writing."

He listened for a long moment.

"Thank you," he said, and hung up.

"What did she say?"

"That she'd already guessed, and she'd have been disappointed in me if I hid it."

I wrote my reply to the whole list in four sentences.

I said that the photographs were real and the dates were accurate.

I said that I had been cleared by the committee before last night.

I said that Trevor Dunleavy had paid someone to follow me for a week, and I would like that investigated too.

I pressed send and got dressed.

Thane drove me to Westerville, because I told him I was going to Dunleavy Wealth and he said he would not argue.

"I'll wait in the car," he said. "You do this one yourself."

"I know."

He kissed my forehead, and it was the first time he had touched me where anyone could see, and he did not look around first.