What the PI Found

The PI started in the third week. A woman named Diane, who worked out of an office near the courthouse and who Aaron had used before. Professional, methodical, the kind of person who understood that this was about documentation, not drama.

The first report came back clean. Drake was going to work. He was going to the gym. He was buying groceries. He was, as far as Diane could tell, complying with the order.

That was bad. Liza understood, in the way she understood all of this, that compliance was not the same as surrender. Drake complied when it suited him. He complied when compliance was a strategy, a way of building a record of good behavior that he could use later.

But compliance also meant she could sleep at night. Compliance meant she could go to work and come home and cook things that required saffron.

She let herself have two weeks of quiet. She let herself believe it might last.

Then the second report came back, and it was not clean anymore.