I heard the crack from inside the laundry corridor at Veils, his restaurant on Walnut Street, but I did not know what it was yet.

"Wait," I said, my voice rising above the terror. "Look at the paper."

Marcus paused, one hand resting on the polished back of his leather chair. "Why? It’s your handwriting."

"It's too clean," I said, leaning forward, the instinct of a woman who spent forty years scrubbing floors taking over. "Look at the top right corner. See that smudge? It’s not ink. It’s an oil stain."

Marcus frowned, signaling the guard to bring the paper closer. He inspected it under the desk lamp. "So what? People spill coffee."

"Not coffee," I said, shaking my head. "It’s citrus. Specifically, the heavy-duty lemon-scented solvent we use exclusively on the service doors in the basement. We ran out of the industrial cleaner three weeks ago, so the boss bought a commercial degreaser from the hardware store on 4th Street. It leaves an oily, yellow residue if it touches paper before it fully dries."

Marcus looked up, his slate-gray eyes narrowing. "Go on."

"The service doors are locked from the inside every morning," I explained, urgency giving me strength. "Only three people have the key to the storage closet where that specific cleaner is kept: me, the head chef, and Julian Vale’s old assistant, who still drinks at the bar down the street. If someone handled that paper in the basement supply closet while cleaning up after a late-night meeting, the residue would transfer from their fingers."

Marcus stared at the document, then slowly brought it closer to his face. He sniffed it.

A faint, unmistakable scent of artificial lemon rose from the parchment.

"Julian’s assistant," Marcus muttered, a dangerous edge creeping into his tone. "Leo Vance. He was supposed to be fired, but Julian kept him on retainer."

"And there's more," I added, emboldened. "Check the door handle to Dominic's private study."

"What about it?"

"The police—or your men—didn't dust it properly yet," I said. "Whoever used my badge to get in didn't wear gloves on their left hand. They had an old injury on their ring finger. I remember seeing Leo drop a crate last week; he jammed his knuckle. If he touched that brass handle..."