“Last week?” Daniel repeated.
“Yes. And there was an access request yesterday afternoon.”
The air seemed to thin.
Jason had gone there yesterday.
Before the hearing.
He had expected me to stay quiet, but he had still prepared.
“Can we get a court order?” I asked.
Daniel’s mouth tightened. “We can request one, but it may take time unless we can establish immediate risk of destruction.”
Priya looked at me. “There’s more. The account has two authorized users.”
“Jason and Madison?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Jason Mitchell and Evelyn Mitchell.”
Jason’s mother.
For a moment, the courthouse, the reporters, the traffic, all faded behind the memory of Evelyn’s perfume.
White gardenia and powder.
Evelyn Mitchell had never raised her voice. She did not need to. She had ruled rooms with the quiet certainty of a woman who considered emotion a flaw in other people. She had smiled through charity luncheons, praised me in public as “our brilliant Iris,” and later, when no one else could hear, reminded me that brilliance was unattractive when it made a husband feel small.
