The Evidence

The hotel room looked like a war zone by two in the morning.

Delia had pushed the armchair against the window, not for safety but for the surface of the ottoman, which she had converted into a sorting station. Legal pads covered the bed in neat rows. Her laptop glowed from the desk, screen after screen of financial records stretching back fourteen years. The minibar door hung open, its contents untouched except for a single bottle of water she had cracked an hour ago and forgotten to drink.