and useful took over.

I smiled back and said, ‘That’s me.’ Ava relaxed immediately and stepped aside, all hostess grace.

‘Perfect,’ she said.

‘Daniel’s still in the shower.

We tried to keep everything neutral for the buyers.’ She said buyers the way people say honeymoon, with expectation folded into the word.

I walked past her and into my own living room while every nerve in my body screamed.

Once I started looking, the details came at me faster than I could absorb them.

An overnight bag beside the sofa.

A men’s blazer Daniel had supposedly left at the office.

A second toothbrush in the guest bath.

A new candle on the kitchen island, vanilla and sandalwood, nothing I would ever buy.

In the center of the dining table sat white lilies in a glass vase.

Daniel had never brought me lilies.

He claimed he couldn’t tolerate the scent.

Apparently the problem had never been lilies.

I asked Ava, as evenly as I could, how long she had been staying there.

She tucked one bare foot behind the other and laughed softly.

‘Officially together in the house? A few months.

Unofficially, longer.

Daniel said his business partner was finally moving out and that once the sale closed we’d be free to start over somewhere bigger.

He wanted the next place to feel like ours from day one.’ Then she added, with a shy little smile that made my stomach turn, ‘We’re getting married in October.’

I asked no questions that sounded emotional.

I asked the kind that sounded administrative.

Had she seen any paperwork? Did Daniel mention the closing date? Was the buyer local? She answered without suspicion.

She had seen a draft listing.

He told her the house sale would cover the down payment on a new build.

He said the delays were all because the partner had become difficult and sentimental.

He said he hated conflict and wanted things handled cleanly.

By then I already knew Daniel had forged at least one title document, but hearing her repeat his story turned suspicion into shape.

Ava led me down the hall toward the primary bedroom, talking about built-in shelving and whether the next house should have a nursery with a window seat.

On my nightstand sat a framed photo of Daniel and Ava on a beach in Tulum.

They were sunburned and laughing, and in the corner a digital timestamp marked July 18 of last year.

Daniel had told me he was in Phoenix that week attending a leadership retreat.

I had sent him texts asking how the sessions were going.

He had answered from a beach.

The bathroom door opened before I could decide what to say first.

Steam rolled into the hall, carrying the cedar scent of Daniel’s soap.

He stepped out in a towel, drying his hair, and said, ‘Babe, is the coffee ready?’ Then he looked up and saw me.

I have never seen someone understand disaster so completely with one glance.

The color left his face.

His hand dropped to his side.

He didn’t look guilty first.

He looked trapped.

‘Claire,’ he said.

His voice thinned into something almost boyish.

‘Your flight—’

Ava turned to him with a crease between her brows.

‘Why are you calling the broker Claire?’

I closed the leather folder I