Marsh called while Wren was still inside with Titan. He had been calling intermittently since the bowl change. “I’d feel better if we had her properly vetted,” he said carefully. “I have a contact—a private investigator. Thorough, discreet. Let me have him look before this goes further.”
The offer was reasonable. The kind of thing a careful advisor says. Marcus almost agreed. Something in Marsh’s tone—the slight over-precision of it, arriving only hours after the bowl change—registered in the back of his mind as wrong, like a note played flat.