“But I need the whole picture, Melanie.”

“The police are at the door, and once they walk in, my hands are tied.”

“Tell me what happened at the warehouse.”

I stood in the dim, drafty hallway just outside the office door, my fingers clamped tightly around my phone.

Through the live audio stream Wyatt had kept open, every word of Melanie’s frantic breathing came through the speaker.

Beside me, Detective Harper kept his hand resting on the heavy brass doorknob, waiting for my signal.

The air in the corridor smelled of damp wool and old floor wax.

“It wasn’t supposed to go that far,” Melanie’s voice crackled through my phone receiver, trembling but sharp.

“We just wanted to scare her.”

“My mother said Sadie needed to be taught a lesson so she would finally sign over her share of the grandfather’s estate.”

I closed my eyes, the scars on my shoulder aching under my heavy winter coat as her words cut through me.

“And the disfigurement?” Wyatt pressed, his tone calm, almost comforting.

“The acid? The beating?”

“That was Marcus,” Melanie hissed, her voice cracking with desperation.