Of course he knew where to focus. He’d know what to ask because he dealt with large contracts all the time. “They got into the business of bribery, dealing information on their competitors and former friends. On politicians. They collected intel and used it. Money flowed, so much more than from the real work that they switched their focus to the dirty money.”

“Wait a minute. This sounds familiar.” Connor squinted as if he were pulling the pieces of the story out of his memory. “The wife and husband . . .”

“Died. Killed each other. Were killed.” None of the words fit. “The initial thought was Allison found out about an alleged affair and confronted Grant at the office. He killed her, then himself.”

“Was any of that true?” Sylvia asked.

“No.” Maddie inhaled, waiting for the moment where talking about this would become a relief. But it never happened. “Thinking we were like family, or at least friends, I had talked with Allison about my suspicions. Showed her the tracing I’d done, walked her through the accounts and showed her the evidence that the money didn’t match with the work orders, all thinking she’d work with Grant to get the truth out. She said we’d go to the police or the FBI together. And that night . . .” She swallowed hard. “Well, there was an affair, but it was between Ned and Allison and she warned him about my worries.”

Ben groaned. “Shit.”

“Before I left the office that night, Ned tried to kill me. The whole thing ended with Allison and Grant dead and the police called.”

“Ned killed them?” Ben asked.

She couldn’t really answer, so she nodded.

“How did you survive?”

“In the middle of the chaos, I hit the alarm for security.” She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “They got there, but not in time for the others.”

Connor continued to stare at her. The look morphed from concerned to assessing. Just as she feared. He would see her differently now. They all would.

“What happened next?” he asked.

Time blurred in her head. “Ned blamed me. He made up the affair story. I was arrested.”

“What?” Sylvia sounded appalled on her behalf.

“Technically, I did help move the money around. The accounts didn’t match up and I ignored the signs until I couldn’t anymore.” If she could go back and replay all those moves, call the police in sooner, Allison and Grant might be alive. That awful bit of timing changed everything and she’d never figured out a way to live with that.

“But someone followed your tracing, agreed with you, and you became the star witness,” Connor said, filling in the pieces for her.

Sylvia hummed. “Good guess.”