For almost three months, Thursday had become my wife’s favorite day of the week

Elena Vance didn't look or act like David. Where David was cautious, corporate, and prone to administrative anxiety, Elena had the sharp, restless energy of someone who had spent the last decade working as a freelance investigative journalist before burning out on corporate corruption and relocating to North Carolina for a quiet life.

Or so she claimed when we sat down on her unfurnished living room floor thirty minutes later, drinking lukewarm tap water out of plastic moving cups because her kitchen boxes were still buried somewhere near the bottom of the stack.

"David mentioned you handled that little compliance mess last week," Elena said, swirling her water cup. "The guy with the black BMW. What was his name? Miller?"

I sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor, keeping my posture relaxed. "Jonathan Miller. Yes."

"David thinks you're some kind of mild-mannered math wizard who just happened to stumble onto an IT breach," she said, her dark eyes narrowing slightly as she studied me. "I read your initial data logs, Thomas. You didn't stumble onto anything. You laid a trail of digital breadcrumbs and waited for him to walk right into the server room."

"An engineer plans for contingencies, Elena," I replied smoothly. "If a system has a vulnerability, you patch it. Or you expose it."

She let out a short, sharp laugh—not polite suburban laughter, but genuine, appreciative amusement. "Right. And the pool?"

I raised an eyebrow. "What about the pool?"

"David mentioned something about chemical imbalances and green hair," she said, her lips twitching with a suppressed grin. "Sounds like a rather dramatic engineering solution for a personal dispute."

"The water chemistry was simply unbalanced," I said mildly. "Maintenance is important in North Carolina humidity. If you don't shock the filter regularly, things grow where they shouldn't."

Elena stared at me for a long moment, the silence between us stretching comfortably. There was no pretense here, no polite suburban fakery. She knew exactly what I was capable of, and for reasons I hadn't yet figured out, she didn't find it terrifying. She found it fascinating.

"Well," she said, standing up and brushing dust off her jeans. "If you ever need an assistant who knows how to trace digital footprints without triggering corporate firewalls, let me know. My freelance contract with the Raleigh Chronicle ended last month, and my backyard doesn't have a pool."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, rising to my feet.

As I walked back down the sidewalk toward my own house under the fading twilight sky, the digital chime of my phone broke the quiet.

It was a text from an unsaved number—a Raleigh local code.

*Unknown:* "Thomas. We need to talk. Miller is telling people things at the office downtown. Things that could blow back on you."

I stopped walking on the pavement, looking down at the screen.