Explanation

She put the phone down before she could decide to pick it back up. The hallway between her office and his had never felt long in the daytime — thirty feet of carpet and glass she’d walked a dozen times without noticing its length. At eleven at night, with the ledger folded in her hand and every rule she’d ever written pulling the other way, it felt like the longest walk she’d taken in years. She made herself take it anyway. Standing still had never once solved anything she’d actually needed solved.

She walked down the hall toward the light instead.

Cal looked up when she pushed his door open, and whatever he saw on her face made him set his pen down slowly, the way a person moves around something that might still be dangerous. “That’s not your usual face.”

“I found a second ledger.” Nora crossed the room…