Page 97 of Sexting My Ex’s Dad

“She folded.”

His silence is impressed enough to almost count as praise. “Tell me everything.”

I pace the length of the small kitchen while Maya listens from the doorway and the refrigerator hums too loudly. I give him the short version first, then the useful version. The flash drive. The notes. The shell company. The internal interference. Nate’s message. The warehouse.

By the time I finish, David’s tone has gone flat and efficient. “Good,” he says. “Now stop moving.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re about to start improvising,” he says. “Don’t. I’m looping in Lieutenant Sweeney now. You’re going to send screenshots of Nate’s messages, a photo of the flash drive, and anything Meredith put in writing. Then you are going to sit on your hands for twenty minutes while adults do paperwork.”

My grip tightens on the phone. “I am an adult.”

“Debatable under stress.”

Maya, the traitor, laughs into her sleeve. I shut my eyes briefly. “Fine.”

“Good,” David says. “And Athena?”

“What.”

“Do not go to that warehouse alone and decide midway through that you can out-sass a violent idiot into submission.”

I swallow. “I wasn’t planning to.”

Even from this end of the line, I can picture him rolling his eyes at me. “You were absolutely planning to.”

He hangs up before I can defend myself. Maya steps back into the kitchen and holds out her hand. “Phone.”

I sigh give it to her.

“That easy?” she asks, startled.

“I’m growing,” I say, with a flap of my hand.

She opens my messages, forwards the screenshots to the number David texts over, then hands it back. “I’m proud of us. Look at this. Healthy use of law enforcement.”

I lean against the counter and let my head tip back for a second. “I hate all of this.”

“I know.” Maya’s voice softens. “Still. You’re ending it.”

That steadies me more than I expect. Twenty-eight minutes later, my phone rings from a Boston number.

“Ms. Hale,” a man says. “Lieutenant Sweeney. David briefed me.”

His voice is calm, middle-aged, tired in the competent way that reads as real rather than sloppy. I move into the hallway so I don’t risk waking Ivy and keep my own voice low.

“Thank you for calling.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “I’ve reviewed the texts, and I’ve got a detective already on the fraud and assault angle. If Mr. Clarke can identify Nate through the footage once he’s in shape to do it, that helps. Meredith’s materials help more.”

I rest my shoulder against the wall. “And the warehouse?”

“We’ll cover it,” he says. “You’ll go. You’ll appear alone. You will not actually be alone.”

I close my eyes. “Are you sure that’s the best play?”

“It is if he wants to talk,” Sweeney replies. “Men like him talk when they think they still have control.”