Think, Paula.

I picked up my computer again and navigated back to the news article with the video of Detective Puhl. I started it from the beginning, watching as she stood behind the podium with her chin raised and shoulders squared. The expression in her eyes was sharp and discerning, but there was something else there too. Sadness? Compassion?

Maybe if I went and told her the truth, she’d cut me some slack for doing the right thing?

The video continued to play, and I watched with glazed eyes as the scenes changed in front of my face. Every time the report showed the picture of Beverly—a corporate headshot that appeared to be several years old—I felt my stomach turn over.

Then I saw something that made it drop.

The video had reached the point where Beverly’s coworker was being interviewed. The woman appeared on the screen, and then the station flashed quickly to an image of the office building in downtown Chicago. The law firm loomed large on the city street, but it wasn’t the impressive structure that struck me. The camera zoomed into the emblem of the company’s name and logo emblazoned on the wall.

Baker & Pikensy.

I rewound it twice, watching for the moment when the camera zoomed in on the building, and I let the name of the law firm turn over in my mind.

Baker & Pikensy.

I repeated it again to myself.

Baker & Pikensy?

Where had I heard that name before?

When it hit me, I almost dropped the laptop on the floor.

I felt a lump growing in my throat as the memories from the past week flooded back. I opened another tab and typed in some of the terms I’d searched for the night after I found the phone.

But this time, I got more specific.

“Ryan Hooks sexual harassment case.”

The long list of articles came up, and I scrolled through them, looking for one of the articles I’d seen that night.

It took me a few minutes, but I found it, the link still a dimmed-out purple from where I’d clicked it a few days ago. I gasped out loud as the article confirmed what I’d already known.

Baker & Pikensy.

It was an article about Amanda Strager, the woman who’d accused Ryan of sexual harassment four years ago.

Hooks’s lawyer quoted in the article had worked for…

Baker & Pikensy.

I shut the laptop, breathing heavily.

I knew Bev was a lawyer, but it had never occurred to me to wonder what kind of law.

And it had also never occurred to me that Hooks might have known someone else at the Oak Street apartment that night.

Fuck.

Chapter 23

I spent much of the twelve hours after I got the news about Beverly pinching myself to see if it was all real.