The next morning, Maggie arrives from out of town to offer support. Clare explains the entire situation, from her affair with Gabriel to putting Longfin in Mina Gellman’s front-hall closet. Maggie insists Clare must speak with Jed. Soon after, the news breaks in the New York Post under the headline: “White Shoe Lawyer Arrested in Slaying of Chelsea Art Dealer” (218). The article cites the motive as “personal” but does not yet mention Clare’s affair. Overwhelmed by calls from colleagues, Clare ignores them and resolves to confront Jed directly to get answers.

Clare goes to the Basts’ apartment building, but the doorman, Luka, is under instructions to alert Dorothy. Dorothy meets Clare in the lobby and forbids her from seeing Jed, claiming he is with his lawyers. Refusing to be dismissed, Clare decides to wait.

Jed eventually appears, looking disheveled, and agrees to talk. To ensure their conversation is private, they go to the building’s deserted basement gym. Once there, Jed angrily confronts Clare about her affair with Gabriel. Clare fires back, confronting him about possessing the stolen painting, Longfin.

In the basement gym, Jed denies killing Gabriel and claims he only learned of the affair after his arrest. He explains that his hedge fund, Gatepost, is financially dependent on a single client, Axion, which he discovered is a front for Viktor Semenov, a sanctioned Russian oligarch and Tasha Wolfe’s godfather. Jed had intended to report the illegal activity to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), but Tasha blackmailed him at the MoCA party. She threatened to fabricate evidence of Clare’s professional involvement in the scheme, which would ruin her career. To protect her, Jed dropped the issue.

He then claims that Longfin was delivered to their apartment a few days before Gabriel’s murder. Clare knows this is impossible, as she saw the painting on Gabriel’s wall the night he was killed. Realizing he is lying, Clare is terrified and flees the building.

Clare recounts her conversation with Jed to Maggie, including his lie about when he received Longfin. The lie triggers a realization for Clare: Tasha must have orchestrated the entire blackmail plot from the beginning. She deduces that Tasha arranged her professional relationship with Gabriel—including the introductory phone call with Viktor and a meeting with MoCA curator Clement—specifically to create the leverage needed to silence Jed. To find proof, Clare calls Elise and requests all email correspondence between Tasha and Gabriel. In exchange, she tells Elise that Axion is owned by Tasha’s godfather but claims she does not yet know his name.

Elise sends Clare the emails between Tasha and Gabriel. The correspondence confirms Clare’s theory, showing that Tasha introduced Gabriel to Axion’s representative, tipped him off that MoCA was selling Longfin, and explicitly asked him to hire Clare as a personal favor. The final exchange, sent two days before Gabriel died, is particularly chilling. Tasha writes that a plan is in motion that is the best for everyone involved, and Gabriel cryptically replies, “I don’t want to know the details” (239). The emails provide clear evidence that Tasha manufactured Clare’s connection to Gabriel as part of a larger scheme.

Furious and humiliated, Clare understands that her entire encounter with Gabriel was engineered by Tasha. She finds some comfort in the belief that Gabriel was not a willing criminal conspirator but was manipulated into hiring her as a favor. Clare connects Tasha’s two primary motives: blackmailing Jed to protect Gatepost and appeasing her powerful godfather, Viktor Semenov, by procuring Longfin for him. She concludes that the conveniently timed deaccessioning of the painting from MoCA could not have been a coincidence and that Tasha must have arranged it.

Clare intercepts Clement outside the MoCA and presents her theory: Tasha manipulated him into deaccessioning Longfin as part of a scheme to illegally sell it to her sanctioned godfather, Viktor. Clement confesses, admitting that Tasha exploited his ambition to become the museum’s director. She subtly planted the idea of selling a Blake Webley painting to fund trendier acquisitions, making him believe it was his own concept. Tasha then provided Gabriel as the dealer for her “motivated buyer” and arranged Clement’s meeting with Clare to further cement the false narrative. Clement agrees to testify, but only if Clare finds direct evidence linking the sale of Longfin to Gabriel’s murder.

Returning to her apartment building, Clare asks the doorman, Gino, about the delivery Jed mentioned. Gino checks the building’s logbook and confirms that a messenger delivered a package to Jed on November 4th, two days before Gabriel’s murder. The handwritten entry appears legitimate and difficult to fake. At that moment, Clare receives a text from Elise stating that the NYPD found Jed’s fingerprints at the crime scene. The fingerprint news shocks her into concluding Jed is guilty which she confesses to Maggie.

Clare arrives home to find Jed in the apartment with Sadie. He explains that his fingerprints were at Gabriel’s house because he visited before the murder. He called Gabriel’s gallery and, at Gabriel’s suggestion, met him at his house to confront him for involving Clare in the Axion scheme. According to Jed, this confrontation was how Gabriel first learned that Axion was a front for a sanctioned oligarch, which left Gabriel furious at Tasha for deceiving him. Clare also entertains the possibility that she misremembered seeing Longfin on Gabriel’s wall the night he died, and this uncertainty helps shift her toward trusting Jed’s account.

Clare shares her own discoveries about Tasha’s manipulation of Clement at MoCA. Together, they theorize that after learning the truth, Gabriel must have refused to complete the sale of Longfin. This refusal would have ruined Tasha’s dual plan to appease Viktor and control Jed, giving her a powerful motive to steal the painting. Jed makes Clare promise not to tell the police she was at Gabriel’s house, arguing that Sadie needs at least one parent free. Clare agrees.

Maggie receives news that her partner’s mother’s cancer has returned and immediately leaves for Denver. Alone that night, Clare recalls Gabriel’s last words to her: “I was just trying to protect you” (258). The phrase triggers her suspicion that there is something she has missed. Re-examining the final, cryptic email exchange between Tasha and Gabriel, where he replied “I don’t want to know the details” (258), Clare has a sudden, stunning epiphany that reveals the entire plot. She immediately gets out of bed and sends an email to Michael Kline, the person who hired Elise.