Evidence in the Dark

The pool at the Avalon Apartments was always empty at 2 AM, which was why Elena chose it. She sat on the concrete edge, legs dangling in the chlorinated water, eating cold creamed spinach from a Tupperware container. She couldn't taste it anymore.

The cable bill had arrived that afternoon, and Elena had done what she always did: scan for irregularities. Three years as a fraud investigator had trained her eye. But she hadn't expected to find the pattern in her own husband's charges—hotel pay-per-views in cities where Richard had supposedly been attending "conferences." The cities lined up perfectly with the corporate spy ring her firm had been investigating.

She pulled a strand of hair from her head. One. Two. Three. The stress was literally making her fall apart.

"You figured it out," Richard said from the darkness behind her.

Elena didn't turn. "That your clients? The defense contractors?"

"You weren't supposed to see." He sat beside her, fully dressed, staring at the water. "I offered them you instead. Your expertise, your clearance. They said no."

"So you sold me out anyway."

"I didn't have a choice. They know about the gambling pool, El. The one you run with your analysts. The one that's cost them millions."

She'd started the betting pool as a joke—a way to predict which startups would fail, which executives would crash. But she'd been too good at it. Too accurate.

Richard took her hand. "Come inside. We'll figure this out."

Elena looked at their reflected faces in the pool water—two people who had spent years watching others, never imagining they were being watched themselves. She squeezed the spinach container until it cracked.

"I'm not going inside," she said. "I'm going to the FBI. And you're going to help me."

Richard's laugh was short and tired. "You really would make a terrible spy."

"I know," she said, pulling another hair from her head. "That's why I married you instead."