Gail called at 8:14 the next morning.

"Ms. Lindqvist, Dr. Okafor signed off an hour ago. Mr. Calloway is medically stable. He doesn't need inpatient care anymore."

"Good."

"We offered him the standard plan. He'd get outpatient therapy twice a week and a referral to County Rehab. It's covered by his basic insurance."

"And?"

A shout came through the line behind her. It was his voice, loud enough to rattle her phone.

"Do you know who I am? I'm Rhett Calloway! I don't do *County*!"

Gail lowered her voice. "He's refusing, ma'am. He won't pay the balance either. He called our charge nurse a fat cow and told the intake clerk she should be cleaning toilets."

I closed my eyes. "Is the clerk okay?"

"She's crying in the break room."

"Give her the afternoon off. Paid. Put it on my personal account."

"Yes, ma'am." She paused. "And Mr. Calloway?"

"Follow procedure."

"Procedure means security walks his things to the front gate."

"Then that's where his things go."

---

By noon my phone had buzzed eleven times. Every call was from Rhett.

I watched his name light up the screen and fade. Light up. Fade. On the twelfth, I flipped the phone face down on my desk and went back to Dana's spreadsheet.

At four, a text came through. It was from Bianca, not him.

*Don't worry about Rhett. I've got him at The Halcyon. Some people actually take care of the people they love.*

I read it twice. Then I took a screenshot and sent it to Vaughn.

"The Halcyon runs eighteen hundred a night," he wrote back. "Who's paying?"

"That," I typed, "is exactly the question."

---

The doorbell rang at nine-forty that night.

Nobody gets to the forty-second floor of Bayview Tower without a key card. I opened the door anyway, and there he stood. His jaw was dark with stubble, and a rideshare receipt was crushed in his fist.

"Surprised?" He held up his phone. The app was open, showing his saved addresses. *Home* was listed at the top, with my building's pin. "Apparently I came here a lot. Funny how my phone remembers you better than I do."

"How did you get upstairs?"

"A guy in a suit held the elevator for me. People still recognize my face, Marlowe." He shoved past my shoulder into the foyer. "Now tell me why my wife threw me out of a hospital nine days after I nearly died."

"Sixteen days."

"What?"

"It's been sixteen days since the crash."

"I was discharged because you cut me off." He spun to face me. "Security dumped my bags on the curb like garbage. Photographers were across the street. Do you have any idea how that looks?"

"I have a pretty good idea, yes."

His nostrils flared. "So you admit it."

"I admit I stopped paying." I folded my arms. My bandaged hand stung under the gauze. "You got the divorce agreement yesterday. You told me to my face that our marriage was a mistake I set up. You don't recognize me as your wife. So I'm not paying for your private suite, your private nurse, or your private specialist."

For one second, his face went blank.

Then he smiled, slow and ugly.

"Oh, I get it." He stepped closer. "This is the play. You squeeze me with the hospital until I crawl back and say, *Yes, Marlowe, you're my wife, Marlowe, I'm sorry.*"

"That's not—"

"Listen to me." He jabbed a finger at my chest and stopped an inch short. "I love Bianca. I've always loved Bianca. You can kick me out of every hospital in this state, and I still won't come back to you."

*I've always loved Bianca.*

I had heard those words before. I'd heard them on the second day after he woke up.

He had been propped against the pillows, sharp-eyed and wary, flinching every time I reached for his hand.

"Who are you?" he kept asking. "Why do you keep touching me?"

Then the door opened, and Bianca walked in carrying white roses.

"Rhett." Her eyes were already wet. "Baby, it's me. I'm here. I'm the one you love."

She leaned down and kissed him on the mouth, right in front of me.

He kissed her back.

Something inside me tore open. I lunged across the room and pulled at her arm.

"Get off him! He's my husband! You walked away from him, and now you crawl back the minute he can't remember?"

"Rhett!" Bianca shrieked. "She's hurting me!"

He shoved me with both hands.

I flew backward. The back of my skull cracked against the corner of a steel supply cabinet, and something sharp opened the skin above my eyebrow. Warm blood ran into my eye and down my cheek. It dripped onto my blouse.

I was sitting on the floor, and somehow I couldn't stand.

"Rhett, please." I dug my phone out with shaking fingers. "Look. Just look. Here's our wedding. Here's the certificate. That's your signature. Please just *look*."

He didn't look.

He moved in front of Bianca, the way he used to stand in front of me in crowded paddocks.

"Nurse," he called, without looking at me. "Get her out of here."

"Are you even listening?"

My vision cleared. Present-day Rhett was snapping his fingers in my face.

"I said pack your things." He swung his arm toward my living room, toward the Steinway I'd bought at twenty-six and the wall of windows over the bay. "This is my place. My name's in that app. You've got an hour."

I didn't move.

"Are you deaf now too?"

I picked up the house phone from the console table and pressed one button.

"Front desk, Marcus speaking."

"Marcus, it's Ms. Lindqvist in 42. There's a man in my apartment who isn't on my access list. Please send someone up."

Rhett's laugh cracked like a whip. "Who are you calling security on? I *live* here."

"You visited here."

Two guards arrived in under three minutes. The taller one glanced at Rhett and then at me.

"Ma'am?"

"Please escort Mr. Calloway out of the building."

"Yes, ma'am." He touched Rhett's elbow. "Sir, this way."

Rhett yanked his arm free. "Don't touch me! Do you know whose apartment this is? Mine! You work for *me*!"

"Sir, we work for the owner."

"I am the owner!" His face went red to the hairline. He jerked a thumb at me. "Why the hell are you listening to her?"

Nobody answered him.

They walked him to the elevator, one on each side. He was still shouting as the doors began to slide shut.

"I'll have every one of you fired! The whole building! You hear me? You're *done*!"

The doors closed. The floor numbers ticked down.

I stayed in my doorway for a long time.

*My team. My house. My money. My building.*

He'd said it so easily, the way he'd say his own name. The house I'd bought before I knew him. The team my great-grandfather built. The sponsor deal I'd closed with a fever, and the soup I'd made with bleeding fingers. None of it had ever been a gift to him. In his head, it had always simply been his.

I shut the door and called Vaughn.

"It's late," he answered. "Tell me he didn't show up."

"He showed up. Building security just walked him out."

Vaughn swore under his breath. "Are you hurt?"

"No. Listen. I need three things."

"Go."

"First, finish the full audit on Maddox Motorsport LLC. Every member, every bank, every wire."

"Dana's already on it."

"Second, the Apex money. It's not two point four, Vaughn. I went back through the sponsor ledgers tonight. Twelve million dollars is missing across three seasons. I want to know where every cent ended up."

He was silent for a beat. "Twelve. Jesus, Marlowe."

"Third." I moved to the window. Far below, a tiny figure stood on the curb, waving his arms at the doorman. "Don't correct him."

"Correct him about what?"

"Anything. He thinks the team is his. He thinks this apartment is his. He thinks the shares are his. Let him keep thinking it."

"Why on earth would we do that?"

On the street, Rhett had his phone pressed to his ear. I'd bet anything he was calling Bianca.

"Because he believes he owns everything," I said. "So I'm going to let him put a price tag on this fantasy with his own hands."