I opened another folder, and the signature on the first invoice immediately caught my eye, simply because it didn’t match the signature on all the other invoices I’d seen so far.

“Can you decipher that?” I offered the invoice to Jackson.

He glanced at it, and his eyebrows rose. “No, but I don’t have to because I’ve seen it before. That’s Professor Wilson’s signature.”

I flicked through the rest of the invoices. “He’s signed most of these, so he was definitely involved in at least the official portion of Hamberly’s business, if not the unofficial.”

“Yep.” Jackson handed me back the invoice. “I guess the unanswerable question—at least until someone finds the professor—is how the hell the two of them knew each other. They didn’t exactly move in the same sort of circles.”

“No, but maybe they were school friends or something.” I put the folder back and picked up another. “Or maybe the professor had a secret salacity for men and that’s how the two met. He certainly had the money to help set up this sort of operation. From the little I knew of Hamberly, he didn’t.”

“But surely if the professor was bisexual, Amanda would have picked up on it . . .”

“Not necessarily. Plenty of men the professor’s age prefer to hide their true sexuality under the banner of ‘normality.’ And Amanda was fucking him for specific information. If the professor had been closeted for years, she probably wouldn’t have even noticed.”

Jackson grunted. “If the two of them were partners, then there’s a small chance Wilson might have kept some information here. And that means we’ll have to go through every damn drawer and file.”

“I don’t like our chances of finding anything.” I nevertheless dragged the chair across to make myself comfortable for the long task ahead.

As tasks went, this was even more tedious than going through every number on Janice’s phone.

Dusk came and went, and my stomach was beginning to send out serious “Feed me or else” signals by the time I reached the final cabinet. I pulled out the first folder, then paused as I caught sight of something sitting at the very back of the drawer. I pulled the files forward, then reached in and grabbed it. It was a small cash tin. I shook it lightly, and something rattled inside—and it didn’t sound like change.

I sent a sharp blast of heat at the padlock, melting it in an instant, then pulled it free and opened the tin’s lid.

Inside were more than a dozen USB drives.

My heart began beating a little faster, even though I knew it was totally possible these drives held nothing more than explicit photographs.

I rose, turned on Hamberly’s computer, and tapped my fingers on the desk as I waited for the thing to boot up.