It was a text from an unknown number, but I recognized the phrasing immediately.

*I am outside,* the message read. *Let me up.*

I walked to the lobby receptionist’s desk and looked at the security monitor.

Elias was standing in the ground-floor lobby of my building.

He was wearing his dark grey suit, but his tie was slightly crooked, and his hair was damp from the rain.

“Let him up, Clara,” I said.

A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened, and Elias stepped into our office.

He looked around at the temporary desks, the cardboard boxes, and the small staff of six people.

“It’s quiet here,” he said.

“We don’t need a lot of space to do real work,” I said.

He walked over to my desk and stood there, looking down at the printouts of the Blue Harbor bank transfers.

“I didn’t know,” Elias said. “I swear to you, Ava. I didn’t know Daniel was doing this.”

“That is the problem, Elias,” I said. “You were too busy looking at the horizon to see what was happening at your feet.”