Sloan remembers March 2019 clearly. They celebrated their second anniversary. Napa Valley, a boutique hotel she’d been longing for. He held her hand during wine tastings and told her, “You are the most important person in my life.”

Two weeks later in San Diego, Vanessa Moore had a baby boy.

Sloan opens the laptop again, and what she does next violates federal regulations. She knows it. She does it anyway. Regional carriers. National networks. Private concierge systems. Query after query, she digs with a precision that terrifies her, manually deleting access logs, wiping tracks, acting like someone who’s never broken a rule in her life because she’s too afraid to imagine what it means if she doesn’t.

She finds Portland: Elizabeth Brennan, listed as spouse October 2016 through March 2019. Termination reason: primary policy holder deceased.

She finds Atlanta: Diana Hartley, spouse June 2019 through November 2022. Divorce settlement noted. Contentious asset division. Settlement amount: $2.4 million paid to Alistair.

She finds Phoenix: Margot Sutton, spouse February 2023, status active. Coverage includes two dependent stepchildren.

Four women. Four separate networks. Carefully placed in different systems so their paths wouldn’t cross.

Until now.

At 3:00 a.m., Sloan sits on the bathroom floor, laptop open, brightness so low she can barely read, and the untouched wine glass still waiting on the kitchen counter like a joke. Her mind is brutally clear.

Elizabeth in Portland, married him October 2016, died March 2019.

Sloan, married him March 2017.

Vanessa in San Diego, married him November 2018, still married, mother of his six-year-old son.

Diana in Atlanta, married him June 2019 while he was married to Sloan, divorced later, lost millions.

Margot in Phoenix, married him February 2023, still listed as spouse.

Sloan isn’t his wife.

She’s one of five.

Hinged sentence: The hardest part of betrayal isn’t the lie—it’s realizing how long you lived inside it without seeing the walls.

By sunrise, she makes a decision that surprises even her. She’s not confronting him when he walks through the door tomorrow. She’s not crying or screaming or demanding explanations he can soften with charm. She’s going to his office. She’s going to find proof—physical evidence—because digital records can be dismissed as errors, misfiles, misunderstandings. If she’s wrong, she’ll check herself into therapy and spend the rest of her life apologizing to a man she never should’ve doubted. But if she’s right, she needs evidence that can survive his smile.

Friday, October 13th, 2024, 9:00 a.m. Sloan parks outside Alistair’s private practice downtown. His flight lands at 2:00. She has five hours—maybe less. She’s been here dozens of times. She helped choose the furniture when he opened the practice. Picked the abstract paintings in the waiting room. Planned two charity galas in this very space. The receptionist, Bethany, looks up and smiles with the ease of someone who thinks she knows Sloan.

“Morning, Mrs. Moore. Doctor’s still overseas.”

Sloan returns the smile, feeling her face move like a mask. “Just grabbing some files for next month’s hospital fundraiser. I’ll be quick.”

Bethany waves her through. “Take your time. Coffee’s fresh in the break room.”

Sloan walks down the hallway, and her hands are no longer shaking. Fear has burned off into something colder. Alistair’s office looks exactly as it always has: mahogany desk polished to a mirror shine, floor-to-ceiling shelves of medical texts, walls crowded with framed awards and photos with politicians and celebrities. One photo with the Surgeon General. Another at a cardiovascular conference in Switzerland.

The centerpiece behind his desk is a framed Time magazine cover from May 2017. The headline: “The surgeon saving hearts no one else will touch.”

She starts with obvious places—filing cabinets, locked patient systems, financial statements handled by an accounting firm. Everything organized, everything clean. She’s about to give up when she notices something that shouldn’t matter: the Time magazine frame hangs slightly crooked, a few millimeters off center. She presses the bottom right corner.

Click.

A section of wall swings open.

A safe is built into the wall: biometric scanner and numeric keypad. Sloan stares at it, then presses her thumb to the scanner.

Access denied.

She types his birthday.

Red.

Her birthday.

Red.

Then her eyes drift back to the Time cover date—May 2017, the moment the world crowned him a hero. She types 0512.

The lock disengages with a quiet electronic beep.

Inside are five identical navy-blue velvet wedding ring boxes, arranged in a perfect row like inventory. Sloan’s pulse thunders in her ears. She opens the first box—empty. The ring is likely on his finger right now, in Berlin, saving someone’s heart while breaking hers.

Second box—empty.

Third box—a white gold band, simple and elegant.

Fourth box—an identical band.

Fifth box—another identical band.

These aren’t women’s rings. These are his. Five wedding bands for five different marriages, stored like wardrobe accessories.

Beneath each ring box is a document: prenuptial agreements labeled by city and date. Portland, October 2016. Sloan’s breath catches. Home city, March 2017—her date, her signature at the bottom.

She remembers signing a prenup. Alistair told her it was standard for physicians, malpractice protection. She skimmed, trusted him. But this document is longer than the one she remembers. The prenup she signed was twelve pages. This one is seventeen. And on page nine is a clause she has never seen: Comprehensive Medical Estate Management Authority. Dense legal language, plain meaning—if anything happens to her health or cognition, he gains full authority. Financial. Medical. Legal. Everything.

She turns pages with trembling fingers. San Diego, November 2018—Vanessa Moore, same clause. Atlanta, June 2019—Diana Hartley, identical language. Phoenix, February 2023—Margot Sutton, same.

He hasn’t just married these women. He’s positioned himself as controller, decision-maker, guardian with paperwork.

Sloan photographs every page, deleting apps to make room, her phone storage filling with evidence. Beneath the agreements is a leather-bound ledger in Alistair’s handwriting: trust management fees, “estate optimization transfers,” wire transfers to shell companies—Meridian Holdings, Apex Medical Consulting—amounts running into the millions.

At the bottom of the safe are amber prescription bottles with overseas pharmacy labels. One reads like a wellness regimen for Vanessa. Another for Margot. The third makes Sloan’s skin go cold:

S. Whitaker Moore Cognitive Support Complex.

She searches the compound name. Medical journals load. The words aren’t dramatic, but they are unmistakable: sedative-adjacent properties, cognitive dampening, chronic fatigue, memory impairment, reduced executive function. Sloan’s mouth goes dry as she remembers eight years of “supplements” Alistair handed her with coffee.

“Your vitamin, darling,” he’d say. “Keeps you sharp.”

When the fog came—when meetings blurred, when memories turned slippery—she thought it was stress, hormones, age. She thought it was her.

It was him.

She returns everything to its exact position, closes the safe, presses the wall panel flush, straightens the Time magazine frame until it’s perfectly level again. She walks down the hallway like she belongs there.

“Got everything, Bethany. Thanks.”

“Anytime, Mrs. Moore.”

In her car, she locks the doors, and then her body betrays the composure her face has been wearing. She gets sick onto the passenger floor mat, shaking so hard she can’t reach for tissues without dropping them.

Hinged sentence: The moment you find the proof is the moment you stop hoping you’re wrong.

Alistair walks through the door at 4:30 p.m. Friday like nothing has happened. Sloan hears the key turn and something inside her goes perfectly still, like a lake freezing over. She sits on the couch with her laptop closed, hands folded in her lap. When he enters with his suitcase, she stands, smiles, kisses him hello like she’s done a thousand times.

“How was Berlin?” she asks, voice light.

“Exhausting,” he says, and he does look tired—circles under his eyes, shirt wrinkled. “But the girl pulled through. She’s going to be fine.”

He hugs her and she smells his cologne, the same scent that used to mean safety. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she says, and the lie tastes like pennies. “You should rest. You look wiped.”

He doesn’t argue. By 7:00 p.m., he’s asleep.

Sloan waits until his breathing turns deep and even, then slips into her home office and starts digging through public records the way she used to dig through other people’s fraud claims. Marriage licenses. Property transfers. Probate. Court filings. Obituaries. She builds timelines and watches the pattern rise like a structure.

Elizabeth Brennan, Portland. Her father died May 2016. Estate valued at $2.3 million. Five months later, she married Alistair in October 2016. Elizabeth died March 2019 at 48, cause: cancer. Obituary mentions her “loving husband, Dr. Alistair Moore,” and how he managed her estate with compassion.

Vanessa Moore, San Diego. She inherited a house July 2018 after her mother died. Estate approximately $1.8 million. Marriage license filed November 2018. Son born March 2019. Still married.

Diana Hartley, Atlanta. Tech executive. Her husband died January 2019 of sudden cardiac arrest at 42. Estate worth $5.1 million. Six months later, Diana married Alistair. Divorce filed November 2021, finalized March 2022. Settlement: Diana paid him $2.4 million to end it.

Margot Sutton, Phoenix. Real estate agent. Her father died September 2022. Estate worth $3.8 million. Five months later, she married Alistair in February 2023. Still married. Sloan finds Margot’s public Facebook: Margot and Alistair at a restaurant, smiling. Caption: “Date night with my amazing husband, feeling blessed.”

Sloan sits back. Every woman lost someone. Every woman inherited money. Every woman married Alistair within three to six months of grief. It isn’t coincidence. It’s a formula.

Saturday morning, Sloan messages Diana Hartley on LinkedIn: “My name is Sloan Whitaker. I believe we’re both married to the same man. I need to speak with you urgently.”

Diana replies ninety minutes later: Holy. Call me.

They talk for three hours. Diana’s voice is steady, but there’s tension under it like wire. She met Alistair at a medical charity gala six months after her husband died. He was kind. Patient. “He didn’t push,” Diana says. “He listened. He made me feel safe.”

Then the vitamins started. “For grief,” he told her. “For stress.” The fog came fast. Board meetings missed. Mistakes that never would’ve happened before. Alistair offered to handle finances “temporarily.” When she tried to leave, he threatened to have her declared incompetent, waved paperwork of “cognitive decline” like a leash.

“I’ve been waiting three years for someone to believe me,” Diana says quietly.

Sloan tells her about the safe, the navy-blue ring boxes, the altered agreements, the ledger, the bottles with Sloan’s name. Diana goes silent.

“How many?” Diana asks.

“Four I can prove,” Sloan says. “Maybe more.”

They agree to meet Monday. Build a case.

Sunday night, Alistair is affectionate, relaxed, domestic. He makes breakfast and tries to hand Sloan her small white pill with coffee.

“Your supplement,” he says fondly.

Sloan pretends to take it and slips it into her pocket when he turns away. Sunday morning, she does it again. By night, she can feel the difference—like she’s been underwater for years and is finally breaking the surface.

She lays evidence on the kitchen island: printed insurance policies, marriage licenses, ledger pages, prescription bottles, photos of the ring boxes and the safe. Arranged neatly, like an exhibit table.

“Alistair,” she calls from the bedroom doorway, “can you come downstairs? We need to talk.”

He smiles. “Two seconds.”

He follows her down. When he sees the island, he stops. Five seconds of stillness. Then he looks at Sloan and puts on the same warm smile he uses with frightened patients.

“Sloan, sweetheart,” he says gently, “you’ve been under enormous stress lately. I’ve been worried about you.”

He shifts toward his medical bag. Sloan knows what’s inside: more “help.”

“Don’t,” she says.

He stops and recalibrates. “Okay. Let’s talk. I can see you’re upset, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” He gestures at the documents. “These women needed help. Complex estate situations. Medical oversight. I provided consulting. Everything was legitimate.”

“You married them,” Sloan says.

He exhales as if she’s the difficult one. “Margot and Vanessa, yes, but you and I have always had a different kind of relationship. More of an understanding than a traditional marriage. I assumed you knew we had… an open arrangement.”

Sloan almost laughs. “We don’t have an understanding. We have a marriage. Or I thought we did until I checked and found out our license was never filed with the county clerk.”

His smile flickers.

“Sloan,” he says, softer, “you’re not thinking clearly. The supplements I’ve been giving you are designed to help cognitive function. If you stop suddenly, you can experience side effects. Paranoia. Confusion. Let me adjust your dosage.”

She slides a printed peer-reviewed article across the island, highlighted. “Cognitive dampening agents. Chronic use causes memory impairment and reduced executive function.”

“You’ve been chemically manipulating me for eight years.”

The kitchen goes quiet except for the refrigerator hum. Alistair looks at the paper, then at her, and sits down, hands folded. When he speaks again, the warmth is gone.

“Who else knows?” he asks.

“Diana,” Sloan says, then adds a bluff she needs him to believe. “My attorney. An IRS investigator.”

He goes very still. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You accessed confidential records without authorization. You copied protected documents. You broke into my office. Those are federal violations. You’ll lose your career. Your license. You could be prosecuted.”

Sloan holds his gaze. “I filed a whistleblower complaint about the trust accounts.”

His jaw tightens. His fingers press harder against the counter. “You’re making a terrible mistake,” he says quietly. “This will destroy you as much as it destroys me. Maybe more.”

“I know,” she says.

For the first time, he looks at her like she’s not the compliant woman he’s been managing. She sees calculation behind his eyes.

“I never hurt you, Sloan,” he says, and for a moment his voice almost sounds genuine. “Not really. You were different. Safer. More stable. I thought we had an understanding.”

Sloan feels a crack of something inside her chest that wants to believe he cared in his broken way—then she remembers the ring boxes lined up like inventory and Elizabeth’s obituary praising his compassion.

“Get out,” she says.

Alistair stands, lifts his bag, walks to the front door. He pauses with his hand on the knob.

“You have no idea what you’ve started,” he says. “But you will.”

He leaves. Sloan locks the door, checks windows, checks every entry point, then sits at the table and doesn’t sleep. At 3:00 a.m., she uploads everything to three cloud accounts, sends copies to Diana, drafts an email to an attorney, and files a formal IRS whistleblower complaint for real this time.

Hinged sentence: The second you choose truth over peace, you become the kind of problem predators can’t charm away.

Monday, October 16th, Diana flies in from Atlanta. They meet in a neutral hotel conference room downtown, the kind with beige walls and stale air and no memories attached. Diana arrives with two rolling suitcases full of documents—trust agreements, bank statements, screenshots, spreadsheets. Sloan arrives with safe photos, insurance records, prescription analysis, timelines. They spend twelve hours cross-referencing, barely touching the room service they order.

Diana’s attorney joins by speakerphone: Patricia Thornton, fifteen years in financial exploitation cases. Patricia listens, reviews emailed documents, then delivers the hard truth.

“You have compelling evidence,” Patricia says. “But you need more witnesses. At least three women willing to testify publicly. Two women against a celebrated surgeon—he’ll claim coordination. Juries are skeptical of coordination.”

“What about the documents?” Sloan asks.

“Strong,” Patricia says, “but he’ll argue misunderstanding. He’ll argue legitimate care. You need independent corroboration.”

Sloan starts reaching out. She messages Margot Sutton. No response. She emails. Blocked. Vanessa Moore is worse—no online presence. Sloan sends a certified letter to the San Diego address from the policy, a long shot.

Wednesday, everything explodes. Alistair’s attorney files countersuits: defamation, unlawful access, HIPAA violations, harassment. Against Diana: breach of non-disparagement clause. The filings circulate fast in legal and medical circles. Thursday, a medical publication runs an “exclusive” interview with Alistair: renowned surgeon faces false allegations amid painful separation. He expresses “deep concern” about Sloan’s deteriorating mental health, her paranoia, her erratic accusations. Colleagues offer glowing quotes.

Friday, a cease-and-desist arrives at Sloan’s house from Margot Sutton’s attorney. Margot didn’t just ignore Sloan—she forwarded messages to Alistair and believed him.

Saturday, October 21st, HR emails Sloan: immediate administrative leave pending investigation for unauthorized access. Security clearance suspended. She is escorted out by two security officers while coworkers look away. She sits in her car afterward with a cardboard box in the passenger seat and hands shaking.

Diana calls. “Patricia says we’re in serious trouble,” Diana says quietly. “Without more women, this looks like a coordinated vendetta.”

Sloan whispers, “What if he wins?”

“Then we keep fighting,” Diana says. “Because Margot and Vanessa deserve to know, even if they don’t believe us yet.”

On October 24th, Sloan sits across from Diana and Patricia again. Patricia opens two folders.

“Option one,” Patricia says, “civil litigation. Coordinated lawsuits. Asset recovery. Cleaner. Private.” She pauses. “But he’s winning public relations. Without criminal charges, he keeps his medical license. Likely outcome: confidential settlement, NDAs, and he starts over somewhere else.”

Patricia opens the second folder. “Option two is a federal criminal referral. FBI. Bigamy across state lines. Wire fraud. Mail fraud. But you’ll have to admit under oath how you got the evidence. You’ll lose your clearance permanently. You may be charged too.”

Patricia gives Sloan forty-eight hours.

That night, Sloan lines up the prescription bottles at her kitchen table and stares at her own name on one of them like it’s a bruise. She thinks about Elizabeth dead at 48. Diana paying $2.4 million to escape. Vanessa raising a six-year-old boy. She thinks about the navy-blue ring boxes in the safe, five of them, waiting.

Wednesday, October 25th, Sloan walks into the FBI field office and sits across from Special Agent Lena Torres, early 50s, gray hair pulled back, eyes sharp enough to cut through excuses.

“I accessed databases beyond my authorization,” Sloan says, voice steady. “I entered my husband’s office and opened his safe without permission. I photographed confidential documents. I violated HIPAA. I know I broke the law. I’m here to report federal crimes, and I’m willing to accept consequences.”

She slides three flash drives across the table.

Agent Torres studies her. “You understand what this means for you personally? Permanent loss of clearance. Possibly federal charges.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Sloan looks down at her hands. “Because he’s not going to stop. One woman is already dead. Another lost millions getting away. Another is raising his child. If I don’t do this, there will be a sixth and a seventh.”

Torres nods once and opens a case file.

The FBI opens an investigation into Dr. Alistair Moore for bigamy across state lines, wire fraud, and mail fraud.

The next day, Sloan receives her termination letter. Fired for cause. Clearance revoked. Insurance license suspended pending ethics review. Alistair’s attorney releases a statement calling her “a disgraced former insurance executive” and framing her as unstable.

Even Sloan’s sister calls, confused and worried, repeating Alistair’s narrative like it’s kindness. Sloan can’t explain without violating FBI confidentiality. She sits alone in her house and feels the world tilt under her feet.

Then, on October 28th, she wakes up and realizes the worst has already happened. There’s no career left to protect, no reputation left to salvage. Strangely, that absence feels like oxygen. She opens her laptop to build a comprehensive timeline for herself—proof that she isn’t crazy, that the pattern is real.

Her phone rings. Unknown number.

“Is this Sloan?” a woman asks, voice shaking. “My name is Margot. I need to talk to you.”

Sloan sits down slowly. “What changed?”

Margot’s breath catches. “He told me you were crazy. I believed him. I sent my attorney after you. I’m so sorry.” A pause. “He said he had to fly to Geneva. Emergency surgery. He kissed me goodbye at the airport. Yesterday I got a credit card alert. A hotel charge in San Diego. I thought it was fraud. I called the hotel in Geneva to warn him. They said Dr. Moore never checked in.”

Sloan closes her eyes. “He’s in San Diego.”

Margot’s voice breaks. “With Vanessa. And I’m still legally married to him.” Silence, then the question Sloan has been dreading: “How many of us are there?”

“Five that I can prove,” Sloan says. “One of them died.”

Margot whispers, “I need to see everything.”

Sunday, October 29th, Margot flies in. She meets Sloan, Diana, and Patricia in the same hotel conference room. Margot arrives with documents—bank statements showing wires to shell companies, emails about trust restructuring she doesn’t remember approving, texts where Alistair tells her she’s exhausted and should let him handle finances. At the bottom of her bag are three amber prescription bottles from an overseas pharmacy.

She sets them on the table next to Sloan’s bottles.

Identical compound. Identical dosage.

“I thought I was just tired,” Margot says quietly. “I started forgetting client meetings. He said I was burning out.”

Diana squeezes her hand. “We all thought that.”

Now they have three women. Three separate stories. One identical pattern.

The FBI moves fast. On November 1st, agents execute a search warrant on Alistair’s practice. They seize computers, records, financials—and the safe behind the Time magazine cover. They photograph it all in place before removing it: the navy-blue ring boxes, the prenups, the ledger, the bottles. Alistair’s attorney tries to suppress the evidence as “poisonous tree.” A federal judge denies the motion. The warrant stands.

On November 3rd, the medical board suspends Alistair’s license pending investigation. Hospital privileges vanish. Colleagues who praised him suddenly “decline to comment.” Boards quietly remove him. Speaking engagements disappear. A humanitarian organization he founded announces he’s “stepped back.”

Then, at 2:17 a.m. on November 5th, Sloan’s phone rings. Alistair’s voice comes through without warmth.

“You’ve won, Sloan. Congratulations.”

Sloan says nothing.

“I’ll settle,” he continues. “Civil suits. Name your terms. Diana gets her money back. Margot keeps everything. You get compensation. I plead to reduce. White-collar. Minimum security. Two years, maybe three. No trial. No testimony. No media.”

Sloan’s grip tightens on the phone. Part of her wants to say yes. She’s exhausted, professionally ruined, facing her own charges. The idea of public testimony—admitting she didn’t see for eight years what he was doing—makes her stomach turn.

She asks the question anyway. “What about the others?”

“What others?” he says.

“Elizabeth,” Sloan says. “Vanessa. Any woman after us. Do they get the same deal?”

Silence.

“That’s what I thought,” Sloan says, and hangs up.

He calls back immediately. She blocks the number and finally lets herself cry in the dark because she just refused the easy exit, and now she has to finish what she started.

Hinged sentence: The offer that sounds like peace is often just another way to keep the pattern alive.

On November 13th, federal prosecutors file formal charges: seven counts of wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud, three counts of bigamy across state lines, two counts of identity fraud. If convicted on all counts, the maximum exposure totals 87 years in federal prison. Alistair pleads not guilty, posts $2 million bail, and his defense calls it “misunderstandings” between consenting adults and legitimate estate consulting.

Pretrial motions fly through winter. Suppression denied. Severance denied. The judge allows references to the medications but requires expert framing—no sensational leaps, only what can be proven.

March 10th, 2025, trial begins in federal court. Diana testifies first, calm in a navy suit, describing grief and compassion and then the fog, the missed board meetings, the quiet transfer of control. The defense calls her bitter. She doesn’t break.

Margot testifies next, describing her father’s death and the “coincidental” appearance of Alistair in her legal orbit, the trust changes she doesn’t remember approving, the credit card alert from San Diego, the hotel in Geneva that never had his name.

Then Vanessa testifies. The FBI found her in San Diego months earlier. She had no idea about the other marriages. She brings photos of Leo, six years old, and tells the jury, “I want my son to grow up knowing his mother fought back.”

On days five and six, Sloan takes the stand. The prosecutor walks her through the moment the insurance file cracked her life open, the Time magazine frame, the safe, the navy-blue ring boxes, the ledger, the bottles with her name. When asked how long she was married, Sloan pauses and looks at Alistair in his expensive suit, watching her like she’s a patient he expects to manage.

“Eight years,” Sloan says quietly. “Except we weren’t actually married. He never filed our license.”

The defense cross-examination is brutal. They make her admit she accessed confidential databases without authorization, entered his office, photographed private files, was fired for misconduct. Sloan says yes to each, plain and unflinching.

On redirect, the prosecutor asks, “Why did you risk your entire career?”

Sloan looks at the jury. “Because I found evidence of five women,” she says. “One of them is dead, and I didn’t want there to be a sixth.”

March 31st, deliberations begin. April 2nd, verdict: guilty on seven counts of wire fraud, guilty on three counts of mail fraud, guilty on two counts of bigamy, not guilty on identity fraud due to insufficient evidence.

Two weeks later, prosecutors charge Sloan with one count of unauthorized access to protected databases. Her attorney negotiates a plea. Sloan pleads guilty, receives two years probation, 200 hours community service, permanent loss of security clearance, no jail time. The judge acknowledges the uncomfortable truth: she broke the law to expose worse crimes, and she was both perpetrator and victim.

May 15th, 2025, sentencing: Alistair receives 12 years in federal prison, $4.7 million restitution, permanent medical license revocation, and five years supervised release after incarceration. His hero narrative collapses into paperwork and steel doors.

Sloan’s new life is smaller but honest. A one-bedroom apartment. Probation meetings. Community service at a shelter. A felony record that makes employment difficult—some companies refuse, others hire her quietly for what she knows. She builds a niche consulting practice helping insurers identify fraud patterns, the kind of work that feels like penance and purpose at the same time.

Vanessa sends a letter: Thank you for saving my son from growing up thinking that man was normal. Thank you for showing me I wasn’t crazy. Sloan tapes it to her refrigerator next to her probation schedule.

In June 2025, Sloan sits in a coffee shop with her laptop open and case files spread across the table. A woman in her early 30s approaches, wedding ring still shiny.

“Are you Sloan Whitaker?”

Sloan looks up. “Yes.”

“I read about your case,” the woman says, voice careful. “I think my husband might be doing something similar. Can we talk?”

Sloan closes her laptop. On her mind, the image returns the way it always will: five navy-blue velvet ring boxes lined up in the dark behind a Time magazine cover, a hero’s face smiling while a system ran underneath.

“Sit down,” Sloan says gently. “Tell me everything.”

Hinged sentence: The most dangerous predators don’t announce themselves—they organize themselves, and they count on you never finding the place where they keep the rings.