He started going to the gym at six in the morning. Gary had never been a morning person. In eleven years, I had never once seen him rise before seven without complaint. I said nothing. I noted it. I began, quietly, to build a file in my mind the way I build every file—methodically, without emotion, one fact at a time.
The cologne was new. Not dramatically different—just a half-degree shift, the way a compass needle moves before you’ve noticed the terrain has changed. I recognized it as something expensive, but not as something he had chosen for himself. Gary had worn the same cedar and bergamot for a decade. Someone else had picked this one.