My wife and I were pulled over for speeding on Route 35, and five minutes later, a state trooper was warning me not to go home with her.

His name was Daniel Farrow.

Cole gave me the summary the next morning, reading from a printed sheet like he was briefing someone who needed facts in sequence and couldn't afford to react to each one.

Farrow was fifty-three.

Former financial sector.

Investigated twice for securities fraud in the early 2000s, neither case resulting in charges.

Off the radar for several years after that, then reappearing in connection with a series of financial schemes targeting recently widowed or divorced individuals — mostly men, mostly over fifty, mostly with significant assets and limited social networks.

"He recruits women," Cole said.

"Trains them.

Sets up the targets, manages the money movement, and disappears before anything can be traced back to him directly."

"How many times has he done this?"

"That we can confirm?

Four.

That we suspect?

Closer to nine."

"And Sandra — Laura — how long has she been working with him?"

"We believe since 2016.

Possibly earlier."

I thought about that.

2016.

We had met in late 2018.

Which meant that when she walked into the charity fundraiser where we were introduced, when she laughed at something I said and touched my arm and told me she liked people who were genuinely kind — she was already two years into working for Daniel Farrow.

Every moment I replayed now had a second layer underneath it.

"What do you need from me?" I asked.

Cole put the sheet down.

"Laura doesn't know we've made you.

She thinks you're still in the dark.

If we move on her now, Farrow disappears — he's done it before.

We need him, not just her."

"So you need me to go back."

"We need you to go home.

Act normal.

Give us two weeks."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"You want me to sit across the dinner table from a woman who has been stealing from me for six years and act like I don't know."

"Yes."

"And if she suspects something?"

"Then we move early.

But Michael — if you can hold it together, we get Farrow.

And if we get Farrow, every person he has ever done this to gets a real case.

Not just you.

Not just Pruitt.

All of them."

I thought about Gerald Pruitt's voice on the phone.

*Find whoever is behind her.*

"Two weeks," I said.

"Two weeks."

I drove home that afternoon.

Laura's car was in the driveway.

I sat outside for three minutes before I went in.

She was in the kitchen, making pasta.

She looked up when I came through the door and smiled — the same smile, the same warmth, the one I had believed completely for six years.

"There's enough for two," she said.

"Good," I said.

"I'm hungry."

I hung up my jacket.

I washed my hands at the kitchen sink.

I asked her how her day was and she told me about a client call and a difficult parking situation near the pharmacy, and I nodded and said the right things, and we sat down to dinner together like a married couple with nothing between them.

Under the table, my phone had a new contact saved.

Cole's direct line.

One tap to call.

I watched her twirl pasta onto her fork.

"You seem tired," she said.

"Long few days."

She reached across and put her hand over mine.

Her fingers were warm.

"You work too hard," she said softly.

I turned my hand over and held hers.

"I'm fine," I said.

Two weeks.