Just ten minutes ago, the apartment had been a battleground.

When the officers broke through the door, Stephanie had lunged across the living room like a wild animal.

She had grabbed the laptop from the coffee table, her long acrylic nails scratching frantically against the keys.

“You won’t get a single file, you miserable bitch!” she had screamed at me.

I remembered the terror of watching her thumb hover over the enter key to execute a system wipe.

But Officer Ramirez had been faster.

He seized her wrist, twisting it just enough to force her fingers away from the keyboard.

The screen had flashed with a blue progress bar, but the formatting sequence had been aborted.

Marisol’s digital forensics expert had already taken the device, leaving the backup drive in the bag for the detectives.

“The records on that drive are intact,” Marisol said, looking at the bag. “Stephanie was too slow.”

“She tried so hard to destroy them,” I said, rubbing the tight, scarred skin on my forearm.

“Because she knows those spreadsheets show every dollar they stole from your recovery fund,” Marisol replied.