The phone lit up again with Jasper's name and one of those subject lines he loved to turn into orders: Answer. Now. She watched it ring until the screen dimmed, then let it ring again, and again, until impatience wore itself out. When the fourth call came through with a text—Come home and apologize to Fiona or I file for divorce—Caroline smiled without humor and powered the phone off with her thumb. The apartment she'd rented that afternoon was a square of quiet with blank walls and a window that looked over a street she didn't know yet. Blank was good. Blank could be written over.
She turned the phone back on, scrolled to a number she had never deleted, and pressed call.
“Valorith Group," a woman said, voice precise as a clock. “Office of Mr. Kingsley."
“This is Caroline Hale," she sai
