Chapter 8

Three days later, Dorian sat in the empty dining room of the Ashwood Grill with a box of papers in front of him.

The restaurant was closed. The health department had sent a letter, the licensing bureau had opened a file, and the news cycle had moved on to something else by the second morning, leaving a quiet, complicated wreckage behind it. Margaret Ellis's video had been watched a hundred thousand times. The comments had been a storm of opinions, judgments, confessions.

And Lena had been right — she'd been right about everything.

He spent the afternoon going through the box. It contained seven years of paperwork that had lived in the safe — leases, permits, insurance policies, the restaurant's incorporation papers. At the bottom, in the dark-blue folder, he found a slip of paper with a single name: *Malcolm Reese*, and a phone number.

He'd forgotten the name. It was in the reams of papers, the man he'd paid to handle the "computer issue" seven years ago. Dorian had a vague, sick memory of meeting him in the office, of handing over a drive, of being told there was nothing on it. He'd written the man a check and filed the receipt and never looked at it again.

He picked up the phone and dialed.

"Malcolm Reese," he said into the voicemail. "This is Dorian Ash. From the Ashwood Grill. I need to know what you did with the backup drive you took from my camera system in 2017." His voice was ragged. "I need to know if there's a copy left."

He hung up, and he sat for a long time, and then he stood, taking the box up to the office. Marielle would be here today to collect her things. She'd texted to confirm.

The doorbell flickered. Dorian looked up, and through the front window he saw a figure on the sidewalk — small, sturdy, in a navy polo and grey shorts.

It was Toby.

He was alone.