Munroe followed the edge of the room, checking the floor and finally the window frame. If Bradford had told Okada she would come looking, then there were things Bradford expected she’d find, but he wouldn’t have stored them in the one location guaranteed to be searched.

The hair on her neck rose in animal awareness of being watched, that sixth sense of intuition that kept her alive and that she’d learned to trust without question a long, long time ago. She turned to Okada, who was staring at her from the doorway, and he averted his gaze.

Munroe walked to him and stood just a little too close.

Okada took a step into the hallway to maintain personal space and kept his focus just to her right.

“When he wasn’t here,” she said, “when he wasn’t out wandering and talking to people and doing interviews, where did he spend the most time?”

“We did a lot of paperwork review in one of the conference rooms.”

“I need to see it,” she said.

He led her down the hall and around a corner to another room, slightly bigger. A conference table occupied most of the space, with six wide-back rolling chairs around it. A whiteboard filled the far wall. Narrow windows opened onto a view of the rear parking lot. As she’d done in Bradford’s office, Munroe followed the walls, searching for anomalies and inconsistencies.

Finding nothing, she tugged the chairs away from the table.

Okada stepped into the room and shut the door.

Munroe crawled beneath the table and flipped onto her back. Flush against the decorative edge was a thin drawer. She closed her eyes and sighed, then ran her fingers around the edges, feeling for a crease or line or lock, found a small metal circle.

To Okada she said, “Did Miles leave you a key?”

Okada’s feet moved from the door to the table, but he never knelt.

“He left me nothing,” he said.

Munroe knocked one of the chairs over, pulled off a caster, and hammered the pin into the drawer. Okada said something, but the noise drowned him out, and she pounded metal against wood until a corner loosened enough for her to get a finger wedged into place. She yanked hard. Wood split and bought her an inch.

She wiggled another two fingers into the space, wincing against a splinter, and pulled hard against tongue, groove, and glue. She caught the pieces before they hit her head, flipped onto her stomach, and dumped the contents on the floor: manila envelope, external storage drive, and a number of calendar sheets.

Munroe scooped everything back into what was left of the drawer and pushed it ahead of her, out the opposite side. She stood and then slid into one of the chairs. Okada glanced at her, then at the splintered drawer, and said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The door opened and closed.

Munroe shoved the drive into a pocket and opened the manila envelope. Inside was an English version of Bradford’s work contract. She flipped it open to a marker on the sixth page and to a clause underlined and highlighted.

Munroe read, and then reread, legalese that clearly stated that Bradford, as a security contractor, had the right to hire subcontractors of his own choosing—which explained, possibly, the security badge with Munroe’s name and face clipped to the pages and the official-looking paperwork folded behind it.

Munroe leaned back and, without really seeing, stared at the wall.

Bradford could have hired her at any point in time, had even had a badge made and paperwork processed, and had never given her either. He’d seen this coming. This. He’d put this here for her to find. This. This fucking box with its fucking trove of access that said Sorry I wouldn’t let you work when you wanted it, but thanks for coming in to clean up my shit, I hope you can help me out.

Munroe read the clause once more, and then the conditions under which the corporate heads could terminate any subcontracted arrangements, and then picked up the badge and angled it toward the light. The picture wasn’t recent—it had been taken from Capstone Security files.

Everything was presented in her male persona.

Munroe drew in a deep breath and let out the anger.

Maybe he thought he’d be dead at this point, not arrested, and had meant this as a way to provide answers when she came looking for them.

She flipped through the calendar pages, single sheets, printed off the Internet or from a calendar program, just blank dated squares into which he’d jotted occasional notes. She worked backward from the day of his arrest and hiccupped over a night, a few weeks back, one of several in which he’d said he’d had to stay late at work and had ended up sleeping at the office.

Sure.

If office meant hostess club with an address somewhere in Kitashinchi, Osaka’s high-end nightlife area.

Munroe flipped to the next page, thoughts growing more vehement, searching for other nights he’d said he’d slept at the office and, according to these calendar entries, hadn’t.

Hours that he could have spent with her—and hadn’t.

Truths he could have told—and hadn’t.

Munroe stacked the loose pages and shoved them, together with the security pass and the contract, back into the envelope.

He’d locked her out of a job that he’d clearly needed help with, had refused her help and used her anyway, had lied about staying at work overnight, had lied about God only knew what else.

She kicked the chair beside her and it toppled over.

Okada opened the door and, seeing her face, stood for a long second, half in the room, half out, and then came inside and shut them in.

He put a bottle of tea on the table.

“If you’re thirsty,” he said.