The text came in at 7:43 a.m. on a Thursday, while Mara was standing in her kitchen in last night's socks, watching the espresso machine perform its small domestic miracle.
Call me before Derek leaves. Actually, call me now. I need to show you something.
Jade never texted like that. Jade texted in lowercase and emojis and occasionally entire voice notes that Mara listened to on speaker while driving. Call me before Derek leaves was not Jade's register. It was the register of someone holding something heavy and deciding they couldn't hold it alone.
Derek was in the shower. Mara could hear the pipes.
She called.
"I found something," Jade said, before Mara got a word out. "And I thought about not telling you. I spent twenty minutes thinking about not telling you, and then I decided that was the coward's version and you would hate me forever if you found out I'd known."
"Jade."
"I'm going to send you a screenshot. Don't freak out until you see it. Actually, freak out however you need to, but I want you to see it first."
The screenshot arrived in three seconds. Mara opened it.
She needed a moment. The profile photo was a bathroom mirror selfie — warm lighting, a man's face tilted at the deliberate angle of someone who'd taken ten versions and chose the best one. The practiced confidence of someone selling something.
She recognized the blue tile behind his left shoulder before she recognized the face.
Their bathroom had blue tile. Italian ceramic, chosen together on a Saturday three years ago, arguing pleasantly about grout color in a showroom on the Design District.
D_Ready_For_U. 36. Professional. Discreet. Seeking genuine connection and mutual satisfaction.
"Mara," Jade said.
"I see it."
"I'm sorry. I'm so—"
"I see it." She kept her voice steady. She was quietly proud of that. "How long has the profile been active?"
"I can't tell from the outside. Alex said that tier of membership is monthly, so at least a month. Maybe more."
Derek's shower was still running. She had four minutes. Maybe five.
She walked to the back door and stood looking at their yard. The lawn needed cutting. That was Derek's job. She noted this the way the mind notes ordinary things after bad news — cataloguing the persistent ordinary because it's still there, still intact.
"Don't tell anyone," she said.
"Of course."
"I need you to help me."
"Whatever you need."
"I need you to make a profile. On the site. A woman's profile — pretty enough to get his attention. And then I need you to message him."
Silence.
"I need to know what he's saying to people," Mara said. "What he's promising. How far it's gone. I need evidence." She heard her own voice, level and deliberate, the voice she used in the third hour of a difficult meeting when she'd already decided what needed to happen. "I need something real. Something his lawyer can't argue away."
Another silence. Long enough to be honest.
"Okay," Jade said.
"You're sure?"
"You're my best friend. Yes. I'm sure."
Mara heard Derek turn off the shower. She walked back to the espresso machine and resumed making coffee as if she'd never moved.
"I'll handle the profile tonight," Jade said. "Give me a few hours."
"Thank you."
"Are you alright?"
Mara looked at the espresso coming dark and precise into the cup. She thought about blue tile. About a man who had chosen it with her and then taken a photo in front of it for strangers.
"I will be," she said. "Very alright, actually."