“Yes.”
“What did he add?”
Marina placed the envelope on the table.
“A witness.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“Who?”
Marina’s voice was quiet.
“Your husband.”
I stared at her.
“My ex-husband is already the petitioner.”
“No,” she said.
“Your first husband.”
For several seconds, I heard nothing except the air conditioning.
Then, from somewhere far below, a siren wailed through the city streets.
My first husband.
A man Ronald could not possibly know about.
A man whose name had been buried under sealed records, private settlements, and an obituary that had been deliberately vague.
A man who, according to every public document that mattered, had been dead for eleven years.
I reached for the envelope at last.
My fingers did not shake.
Inside was a single page.
NOTICE OF WITNESS APPEARANCE.
Beneath it, typed in clean black letters, was the name that made the entire penthouse seem to tilt toward darkness.
