He threw boiling coffee in my face at breakfast because I refused to give my bank card to his sister.

She found me.

I don't know how.

I had told no one where I was staying except Officer Voss and Rosa, and Rosa would never have said a word.

But at two-fifteen in the afternoon, the shelter's front desk called my room and said there was a woman outside asking for me by name.

I looked through the narrow window beside the door.

Suzanne was standing on the front step in a white linen blazer, sunglasses pushed up on her head, arms crossed.

She looked like she was waiting for a table at a restaurant, not standing outside a women's shelter.

I called Voss first.

"She's here," I said.

"Don't go outside.

You're under no obligation to speak to her."

"I know." I watched Suzanne check her phone, then look up at the building with an expression that mixed impatience with something else — something tighter.

"But I'm going to."

A pause.

"Skylar—"

"I'll record it," I said.

"I want to hear what she says."

I pressed record on my phone, slipped it into my jacket pocket, and walked to the front door.

Suzanne's expression when she saw me shifted through several things in quick succession.

The burn on my cheek and jaw had darkened overnight.

She looked at it for exactly one second before she looked away.

"We need to talk," she said.

"We're talking."

"Not here." She glanced at the building behind me.

"Somewhere private."

"Here is fine."

Her jaw tightened.

"Skylar, you don't understand what you've started.

Derek is a good man.

He made some mistakes, but what you did — going to the police, letting them contact his employer — you could destroy his entire career.

His entire life."

"He threw boiling coffee at my face, Suzanne."

She didn't flinch.

"He lost his temper.

It was an accident."

"The medical report disagrees."

"Medical reports can be—" She stopped herself.

Recalibrated.

"Look.

I know things haven't been perfect between you two.

I know I've asked for money sometimes and that made things tense.

But Derek loves you.

He's panicking right now.

If you just talk to him, if you just give him a chance to explain—"

"Explain Marisol Fuentes?"

The name landed like a stone in still water.

Suzanne went very still.

"Where did you hear that name?" she said.

"The shoebox, Suzanne.

The one Derek found yesterday."

Her chin lifted.

"That is a private family matter that has nothing to do with you."

"He's my husband.

His finances are my finances.

His hidden child is very much my business."

"She is not—" Suzanne caught herself again.

Her composure was cracking at the edges, just slightly, like old paint.

"Derek made a mistake years ago.

He's been handling it quietly.

He didn't want to hurt you."

"He was handling it with client funds."

Silence.

"You don't know that," she said.

But her voice had lost its certainty.

"Coastal Premier Insurance knows it," I said.

"Their compliance team has been notified.

So has Officer Voss.

So has a colleague of hers who handles financial investigations."

Suzanne's arms dropped from their crossed position.

Her sunglasses slid forward slightly on her head and she didn't fix them.

"Skylar." Her voice was different now.

Quieter.

"If Derek loses his license — if this goes further — our mother is going to lose her house.

Did you know that?

Derek has been covering her mortgage for three years.

Patricia doesn't have savings.

She has Derek." A pause.

"Whatever he did, whatever mistakes he made — if you push this, you're not just hurting him.

You're hurting her."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"I didn't create this situation," I said.

"Derek did."

"You could stop it."

"No," I said.

"I couldn't.

Not anymore.

This is bigger than me now."

Suzanne stared at me.

For just a moment, underneath the linen blazer and the practiced composure, she looked genuinely frightened.

Then she put her sunglasses back on.

"You'll regret this," she said.

"When you see what this does to this family, you will regret it."

She walked back to her car without looking at me again.

I stood on the step until she drove away.

Then I took my phone from my pocket, stopped the recording, and sent the audio file to Voss.

My phone rang thirty seconds later.

"She mentioned the mother's mortgage," Voss said.

"Yes."

"That's a pressure tactic.

Don't let it move you."

"It didn't," I said.

But I stayed on the step a moment longer, looking at the empty street.

Patricia.

Derek's mother.

The woman who had always called me *Brandon's wife* at family dinners, even after two years of marriage — always slightly wrong, always slightly distant, as if she were leaving a door open for someone else to walk through.

Now I wondered if that someone had a name.