The Palm Reader's Warning

The corporate headquarters rose like a glass pyramid from the Phoenix skyline, catching the brutal morning sun. Elena pressed her palm against the cold automatic door, remembering what the old woman had told her at the bachelorette party five years ago.

"Your life line is interrupted," the fortune teller had said, tracing the crease in Elena's palm with a nicotine-stained finger. "Betrayal comes from within your own house."

Elena had laughed, drunk on cheap champagne and the thrill of her promotion. Now, stepping into the thirty-seventh floor office, she understood. Julian was already at his desk, his back to her. The way his shoulders stiffened at the sound of her heels—it was microscopic, but she saw it. She'd been watching him for three weeks, ever since the data breach.

Her black cat, Cairo, had been the first clue. Julian claimed to be allergic, yet Elena had found cat hair on his suit jacket the night of the merger. Small things accumulated like dust.

"Morning, El," Julian said, not turning around. His voice was flat, rehearsed.

She walked to her corner office, the one with the view of the mountain range. On her keyboard sat a manila envelope—her exit packet. The corporate spy she'd hired to investigate Julian had instead brought her proof of her own complicity. The leaked documents had been sent from her account during her blackout nights, the ones she'd blamed on stress and Ambien.

The pyramid scheme wasn't the company. It was her marriage.

Elena touched her palm to her forehead. The old woman's voice echoed: *Betrayal comes from within.* She'd always thought Julian was the spy, but the surveillance footage showed something else. Herself, walking and typing at 3 AM, her face blank as Cairo watched from the windowsill.

She turned toward Julian's office. He was watching her now, his expression unreadable. Maybe he'd known all along. Maybe he'd been covering for her, or maybe he'd been waiting for this moment.

Outside, a dust storm was beginning to obscure the pyramid, swallowing it in gold and gray. Elena's palm tingled. She thought about the way Cairo's fur felt against her skin, the only thing that was real anymore.

She picked up her phone and dialed the lawyer. Then Julian's extension.

"We need to talk," she said.

"I know," he replied. "I've been waiting."