Blue Water, Black Thoughts

The pool reflected the bruised purple of twilight, its surface undisturbed except for the occasional ripple from the wind. Elena sat on the edge, legs submerged in water that had grown too cold for comfort, nursing a glass of wine that she'd been nursing for two hours.

Her phone buzzed on the patio table. *The Spy* — that's what she'd named him in her contacts, though Marcus was merely an auditor from headquarters. He'd arrived three weeks ago with his crisp suits and his invasive questions about the department's procurement records. Elena had slept with him twice. Once in his sterile hotel room, once in the backseat of his rental car. She told herself it was strategic — keep the enemy close, learn what he knew. But the truth was simpler: she was lonely, and he looked at her like she was still twenty-five instead of thirty-eight with a mortgage and a recurring shoulder pain.

Marcus thought he'd uncovered something damning. Misclassified expenses. Fictitious vendors. A paper trail that pointed to Elena's boss, Richard, siphoning money into offshore accounts.

What Marcus didn't know — what Elena couldn't tell him — was that she wasn't covering for Richard. She was covering for herself.

The back door opened. Her golden retriever, Buster, trotted out, nails clicking on the stone, and flopped down beside her with a groan. He'd been her companion through the divorce, through her mother's decline, through five years of increasingly desperate decisions that had started with small justifications and ended with embezzlement. Buster had never judged her. That was more than she could say for herself.

She looked at her phone again. Marcus wanted to meet. Tonight. He said he had proof. She could delete the files on Richard's computer — frame it all on him, easily — and this would all go away. Richard was planning to retire to Belize anyway. He wouldn't fight it.

But tonight, under the weight of her dog's warmth against her thigh and the impossible blue of the pool water turning silver in the emerging moonlight, something cracked inside her. She thought about Marcus's genuine enthusiasm for justice, his naive belief that the world was solveable if you just found the right equations. He reminded her of who she'd been before life had worn her down to compromises.

Elena drained her wine glass and stood up, water dripping from her legs onto the patio. She picked up her phone and typed: *I did it. I'll have the documents ready for you in the morning.*

Then she deleted Marcus's number, sat back down at the edge of the pool, and waited for the water to stop feeling quite so cold.