All of those answers were true.

None of them was the real one.

“Because they aren’t mine to manage anymore.”

Something in his face fell.

Not much.

Just enough for me to see it.

Thomas cleared his throat.

“I should probably leave the two of you—”

“Actually,” I said, “I’d like to know why you came here.”

He paused.

“You said you were sorry about the timing.”

Thomas looked toward the mansion behind me.

“I called the number your grandmother’s attorney gave our office years ago.”

“My grandmother’s attorney?”

“Yes.”

I frowned.

“Why?”

He glanced at the documents.

“Because BDM Events was once a Caldwell vendor.”

My heartbeat slowed.

“What?”

“Not recently. Long before my time as CEO.”

“How long ago?”

He looked at the incorporation record.

“Approximately eighteen years.”

That was impossible.

Or perhaps I was learning to stop using that word.

My grandmother had never worked in catering.

As far as I knew, Eleanor Whitmore had spent most of her adult life managing family investments and sitting on the boards of two charitable foundations.

She loved gardening.

Classical music.

Crossword puzzles in ink.

She considered catered salmon universally overcooked.

“Do you have records?”

“Some.”

“I want to see them.”

Thomas studied me for a moment.

“I thought you might.”

Jason leaned forward.

“Why would Nora’s grandmother have a vendor account with Caldwell?”

Thomas shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“But the money from my company went into her business.”

“We don’t know that either.”

He tapped the payment report.

“The account receiving the recent transfers is listed under the BDM Events name. That doesn’t necessarily mean the current bank account is controlled by the company’s original owner.”

I understood immediately.

“Someone could be using an old entity.”

“Exactly.”

Brooke looked up.

“Martin.”

Nobody answered.

Thomas gathered his papers.

“Our legal department will contact Mercer & Table formally. Until then, I strongly recommend that nobody access, alter, delete, or move any financial records.”

Jason’s shoulders stiffened.

“I know how an audit works.”

Thomas gave him a neutral look.

“Good.”

Then he turned to me.

“I’m sorry this came to your doorstep on a difficult morning.”

I almost smiled.

“Technically, it came to my terrace.”

He laughed softly.

For the first time that day, the tension eased.

Only for a second.

Then he reached into his leather folder and handed me a business card.

“Call me this afternoon. I’ll have someone prepare the archived vendor documents.”

I took it.

“Thank you.”

Thomas headed toward his car.

Halfway there, he stopped and turned.

“One other thing.”

We all looked at him.

“The attorney who originally submitted BDM’s vendor paperwork was Samuel Whitmore.”

My father’s name.

Everything inside me stopped.

Thomas must have seen it.

“You know him?”

I found my voice.

“He was my father.”

Jason looked at me.

I don’t know what he saw on my face.

I barely knew what I was feeling.

My father had died when I was sixteen.

For twenty-one years, my memories of him had belonged to a sealed part of my life.

His navy sweaters.

His terrible singing voice.

The way he would knock twice on my bedroom door even when it was already open.

The smell of cedar from his office.

A silver watch he wore every day.

He had been an attorney, yes.

But my grandmother’s company?

BDM Events?

Caldwell Industries?

None of those pieces belonged together.

Thomas’s expression softened.

“I didn’t realize.”

“Neither did I.”

After he left, the three of us remained on the terrace.

Jason spoke first.

“Nora, are you okay?”

It was almost funny.

Not because the question was cruel.

Because he sounded genuinely concerned.

And I had once wanted that concern so desperately.

I looked at the gates.

My suitcase was still sitting just outside them.

A ridiculous little blue rectangle on the sidewalk.

Less than an hour earlier, it had represented everything I thought I was carrying into my new life.

Now it looked like luggage.

Nothing more.

“I need to go inside.”

Jason stood.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

He stopped.

“I wasn’t asking because of us.”

“There is no us.”

“I know.”

His voice was quiet.

The anger I expected didn’t come.

“I meant because of your father.”

That almost made it harder.

I picked up the suitcase.

“I need to be alone.”

Brooke stood too.

“Nora.”

I turned.

She pressed her lips together.

For the first time since I had discovered the affair, she looked directly at me without defensiveness.

“I really didn’t know about the invoices.”

I believed her.

That realization was inconvenient.

But truth often is.

“I think you should find out exactly what you did approve.”

“I will.”

“And don’t let anyone tell you paperwork doesn’t matter.”

Her eyes dropped.

“I know.”

I looked at Jason.

He had shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

The house across the street stood behind him.

The house where I had spent four years disappearing.

Strangely, it already looked smaller.

“There’s one more thing,” I said.

Jason’s eyes lifted.

“The files I created for Mercer & Table before my access was removed are backed up.”

His expression sharpened.

“Where?”

“With my attorney.”

Brooke stared at me.

Jason looked stunned.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because when you removed my administrator permissions without telling me, I stopped assuming everyone was protecting the company’s records as carefully as I had.”

His mouth tightened.

“You thought I was stealing?”

“No.”

That answer surprised him.

“I thought you were being careless.”

He glanced toward Brooke.

She looked away.

“I was.”

It may have been the first time in years I heard Jason admit something without attaching an explanation.

I nodded.

“I’ll authorize my attorney to preserve everything relevant.”

“Thank you.”

Then I rolled my suitcase through the front door and closed it behind me.

The silence inside the mansion was enormous.

My grandmother’s house had always been quiet, but never empty.

When I was young, there had been clocks.

Seven of them, if I remembered correctly.

A brass carriage clock in the library.

A tall mahogany grandfather clock near the stairs.

A little porcelain clock with painted violets in the morning room.

My grandmother claimed a house should never allow time to pass unnoticed.

After she died, I had stopped the clocks.

I hadn’t meant to.

I simply never wound them again.

I left my suitcase in the foyer.

Dust floated through the light.

The furniture was still covered in linen sheets, except for a few pieces the caretaker used when checking the property.

I walked into the library.

The smell hit me first.

Old paper.

Wood polish.

A faint trace of lavender.

For one aching second, I was ten years old again, curled in the window seat while my grandmother balanced accounts at her desk.

She used to let me add columns on a yellow legal pad.

When I got the totals right, she’d draw a tiny star at the top.

I walked to the desk.

The drawers were empty.

I knew because I had cleaned them out after her death.

Or thought I had.

I ran my hand along the edge.

BDM Events.

What did the letters mean?

Brooke Dalton Mercer had been the obvious answer.

Too obvious.

My grandmother’s name gave me nothing.

Eleanor Margaret Whitmore.

No B.

No D.

No M.

I pulled out my phone and searched my saved contacts for the estate attorney.

Richard Bell answered on the third ring.

“Nora?”

“Hi, Richard.”

“This is a surprise.”

“I need to ask you about my grandmother.”

There was a pause.

“What about Eleanor?”

“Did she own a company called BDM Events?”

The silence that followed was different.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

I sat down.

“You know.”

Richard exhaled.

“I know the name.”

“Why don’t I?”

“Nora—”

“Please don’t tell me this is complicated.”

“It is.”

“Then explain it slowly.”

Another pause.

Richard Bell had been my grandmother’s attorney for almost thirty years.

He had handled her estate.

He had handled the trust.

He had sat across from me after the funeral and explained every account, deed, tax document, and beneficiary designation.

Or so I believed.

“BDM Events was not part of the assets distributed directly through Eleanor’s estate,” he said.