Josie did not sleep.
At 2:13 in the morning, she sat cross-legged on the living room floor of her Gold Coast apartment with every photograph Mateo had given her arranged across the rug.
Nathaniel in Lisbon.
Nathaniel in Madrid.
Nathaniel outside a private bank in Geneva.
Nathaniel entering a rental property under another name.
Alive.
Every photograph felt obscene.
For a year, death had frozen Nathaniel in her memory.
Now he was moving again.
Walking.
Eating.
Traveling.
Living.
While she had been mourning.
Josie picked up the Lisbon photograph.
Nathaniel looked relaxed.
That hurt more than she expected.
She remembered herself three months after the funeral.
She had barely been able to enter a grocery store because she saw his favorite cereal and started crying in aisle six.
Nathaniel, meanwhile, had been sitting beneath Portuguese sunshine drinking coffee.
“Son of a bitch.”
The words sounded strange in the quiet apartment.
Then she said them louder.
“You son of a bitch.”
For years, Nathaniel had taught her to distrust her anger.
Whenever she confronted him, he had a way of making her feel irrational.
You’re emotional, Jo.
You’re misunderstanding me.
Why does everything have to become a drama with you?
By sunrise, Josie had stopped crying.
She made coffee.
Then she opened her laptop.
The old Miller Studio website still existed.
She hadn’t visited it in years.
There she was at thirty.
Hair shorter.
Eyes brighter.
Standing in front of a model for the Lakeshore development.
Josie stared at the woman in the photograph.
Nathaniel had told her closing the studio would give her freedom.
Instead, her world had become smaller.
His dinners.
His friends.
His schedule.
His expectations.
After his supposed death, Josie had considered reopening the studio a dozen times.
Each time, she heard his voice.
You were never really making money anyway.
She closed the browser.
At 7:02, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She let it ring.
Thirty seconds later, a message appeared.
You should not stay alone today. —M
Josie stared.
She typed:
How did you get this number?
The reply came immediately.
I’m a frighteningly resourceful man.
Despite herself, Josie almost smiled.
She erased it.
Stop watching me.
Three dots appeared.
Then stop standing in front of an uncovered window.
Josie froze.
She turned.
Across the street, a black sedan sat near the curb.
Her anger returned instantly.
She called.
Mateo answered on the first ring.
“Good morning.”
“Call your dog off.”
“He has a name.”
“I don’t care.”
“His name is Luca.”
“I still don’t care.”
“You might if someone attempts to enter your building.”
Josie went quiet.
Mateo’s tone changed.
“Nathaniel accessed an old account at 4:17 this morning.”
“From where?”
“Chicago.”
A chill moved through her.
“You said he was coming back.”
“He may already be here.”
Josie looked at her front door.
“What does he want?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“We?”
“You opened the envelope.”
“That did not make us partners.”
“No.”
Mateo paused.
“But Nathaniel already made us enemies.”
An hour later, Josie entered Bianchi Holdings.
She expected something theatrical.
Dark hallways.
Armed men.
Maybe a tiger.
Instead, Mateo occupied three floors of a glass tower overlooking the Chicago River.
The receptionist offered her coffee.
Employees walked around carrying tablets and discussing freight schedules.
It looked disappointingly legitimate.
Mateo was standing beside the windows when she entered his office.
No jacket today.
White shirt.
Sleeves rolled to his forearms.
The tattoos were impossible to miss.
“Josephine.”
“Josie.”
He tilted his head.
“What?”
“My name is Josie.”
“I thought you disliked people taking liberties.”
“I dislike Nathaniel calling me Josephine.”
Something flickered across Mateo’s face.
“Josie, then.”
She sat.
“Tell me everything.”
Mateo didn’t waste time.
Nathaniel had managed financial structures connected to several Bianchi companies. Most were legitimate investments.
One wasn’t.
Mateo didn’t elaborate.
Josie didn’t ask.
Nathaniel discovered vulnerabilities in the system and began moving money in small increments.
By the time anyone noticed, $4.5 million was gone.
“He stole from you.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t notice?”
Mateo gave her a dry look.
“I have fired people for asking that question less politely.”
“Are you going to fire me?”
“You don’t work for me.”
“Then answer it.”
His mouth twitched.
“No. I didn’t notice.”
That admission surprised her.
“Nathaniel was good.”
“He was.”
“He always said he was smarter than everyone around him.”
“Unfortunately, sometimes arrogant men are correct about individual skills.”
Josie looked at the documents.
“How did he fake his death?”
“We’re still reconstructing that.”
“Dental records confirmed him.”
“They confirmed records someone submitted as his.”
Josie’s stomach turned.
“And the body?”
“We don’t know yet.”
She pushed the papers away.
“I don’t want to know.”
Mateo nodded.
That was the first moment she understood something about him.
He knew when not to push.
Nathaniel never had.
“What’s in my old studio?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then why do you think it matters?”
Mateo placed several photographs on the desk.
Nathaniel entering the building late at night.
The dates were from years ago.
Josie frowned.
“I was still working there then.”
“Yes.”
“I never saw him.”
“He usually came between two and four in the morning.”
She studied the photographs.
“What was he doing?”
“That’s what we’re going to discover.”
“We?”
Mateo picked up his jacket.
“You said you wanted everything.”
Twenty-five minutes later, they stood outside the old Miller Studio building.
The bakery downstairs had become a coffee shop.
The second-floor windows looked exactly the same.
Josie stopped on the sidewalk.
Memories arrived immediately.
Her first client.
Her first employee.
The night she won a design award and Nathaniel complained that the ceremony ran too late.
Mateo stood beside her without speaking.
“I loved this place,” she said.
“Then why did you leave?”
“You already know.”
“I know what happened. That isn’t always the same thing.”
She looked at him.
“Nathaniel told me the business was embarrassing.”
Mateo’s jaw tightened.
“He said I was playing architect while he built a real career.”
“You believed him?”
“Eventually.”
Mateo looked up at the windows.
“He was wrong.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve seen your work.”
“You investigated me.”
“I did.”
“That doesn’t make you an architecture critic.”
“No.”
He opened the door.
“But I know the transitional-housing design was excellent.”
Josie stopped.
“How?”
“I had three architects review it.”
“You what?”
“I wanted to know whether Nathaniel had hidden assets inside your projects.”
“And?”
“They found no hidden assets.”
He looked at her.
“They did, however, spend twenty minutes arguing over which of them wanted to hire you.”
Josie didn’t know how to answer that.
So she walked inside.
The basement smelled of concrete and dust.
Mateo’s men had already opened the storage corridor.
Josie recognized the original floor plan immediately.
“This wall is wrong.”
Mateo looked at her.
“What?”
She touched the concrete.
“The basement should extend another six feet.”
One of Mateo’s men checked the plans.
“He’s right,” Josie said.
The man looked at Mateo.
Mateo looked at her.
“Show me.”
Josie measured visually.
Nathaniel had spent years convincing her that her professional instincts were worthless.
Yet within thirty seconds, she had seen something Mateo’s entire team missed.
“There.”
She pointed toward a narrow section of wall.
“That’s not structural.”
Twenty minutes later, the false wall was open.
Behind it sat a steel door.
Mateo entered a code.
Nothing.
Josie stared at the keypad.
Nathaniel liked numbers that meant something.
Birthdays were too obvious.
Anniversaries.
November fourteen.
The day they met.
Then she remembered.
The Lakeshore competition.
Nathaniel had mocked her for months after she lost it.
April 17.
She entered it.
The lock clicked.
Mateo looked at her.
Josie’s stomach sank.
Behind the door was a small room.
Shelves covered the walls.
Files.
Hard drives.
Cash.
Passports.
And architectural drawings.
Her drawings.
Josie stepped closer.
Her transitional-housing project covered an entire wall.
“What the hell?”
Mateo examined the plans.
Several areas had been marked in Nathaniel’s handwriting.
Storage access.
Service corridors.
Private entrances.
Blind spots.
Josie understood.
“He used my designs.”
Mateo’s expression darkened.
Nathaniel hadn’t dismissed her work because he thought it was worthless.
He had studied it.
Used it.
Maybe stolen from it.
Josie felt violated in a way she couldn’t explain.
Mateo opened a metal cabinet.
Inside sat financial records.
Then a small locked box.
Josie noticed something taped beneath the shelf.
A photograph.
She pulled it free.
It showed her leaving the studio.
Taken from across the street.
She turned it over.
Nathaniel’s handwriting covered the back.
She still doesn’t understand what she has.
Josie stared.
“What does that mean?”
Mateo took the photograph.
His expression changed.
“Josie.”
“What?”
“Did Nathaniel ever give you anything related to your studio? A drive? A key? Documents?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I said no.”
Mateo looked around the hidden room.
“He built this behind your business. He used your designs. And he wrote that you had something.”
Josie’s pulse quickened.
Then she remembered.
A week before Nathaniel’s supposed death, he had handed her a small brass key.
She had barely thought about it.
He told her it belonged to an old storage cabinet and asked her to keep it somewhere safe.
After the funeral, she had put it inside a jewelry box.
“I have a key.”
Mateo went completely still.
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
His phone rang.
One of his men spoke urgently through the receiver.
Mateo’s expression hardened.
He looked at Josie.
“Your building’s security system just went offline.”
Her blood went cold.
“The key.”
Mateo was already moving.
“Nathaniel knows you still have it.”
They reached her apartment eleven minutes later.
The front door was open.
Nothing inside looked disturbed.
Josie ran to the bedroom.
The jewelry box sat on the dresser.
Open.
Empty.
The brass key was gone.
Then she saw the mirror.
Someone had written four words across it in her lipstick.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED BURIED.
Josie stared at the message.
Mateo appeared behind her.
Neither spoke.
Then Josie noticed something else.
On the dresser lay a single photograph.
It had been taken that morning.
Josie standing at her living room window.
On the back, Nathaniel had written:
Happy anniversary, Jo.
And for the first time since the funeral, Josie wasn’t wondering whether her husband was alive.
She knew.
Nathaniel Miller was back in Chicago.
And he knew exactly where she lived.