I had dinner with a young stranger at the same café for thirty nights straight — then he set down his fork and said, "You didn't really believe there was no reason behind this, did you?"

I didn't hang up. That surprised me.

My hand stayed steady. I looked across the table at Eli and mouthed one word. Raymond.

He went rigid.

"Mr. Renner," I said. "I don't believe we've ever been introduced."

A pause. He hadn't planned on me being polite.

"Walter always spoke well of you," Raymond said. "Said you were sharp. I believed him."

"What do you want?"

"What's best for everybody." Smooth. Rehearsed. The voice of a man who's talked his way out of tighter rooms than this one. "Eli's a good kid, but he's young and he's angry and he doesn't understand how any of this works. The papers he's got, the papers Howard Pryce has been sitting on for a year — they tell half a story. The wrong half."

"Is that right."

"Walter's name is on those accounts, Mrs. Whitfield. His signature. His choices. If this goes anywhere official, it doesn't just come down on me. It comes down on his estate. On what your kids inherit." A beat. "I don't imagine you want that."

"What exactly are you proposing?"

"A meeting. You and me, nobody else. I bring my own set of books — the whole picture, not Howard's greatest hits. My guess is that once you've seen it, you'll agree the cleanest way through this is a quiet one."

"And if I look at your whole picture and still don't like it?"

His tone didn't move. That was the tell. A man who stays that calm when he ought to be sweating is a man who thinks he's holding something you can't afford to walk away from.

"Then it gets complicated," he said. "For Eli. For you. For your son and your daughter, both of them with families now, careers, reputations, all of it." He let that sit there. "Be a real shame to see that stuff get kicked around over a misunderstanding."

Eli was watching my face. I kept it flat.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Don't take too long. I'm a patient man, Mrs. Whitfield, but this thing's got a clock on it."

He hung up.

I set the phone on the table.

"He threatened your kids," Eli said. It wasn't a question.

"He took a run at it." I picked up my bag. "He thinks I'm scared."

"Aren't you?"

I checked, honestly. There was something in my chest — not fear, exactly, but the cold, clear knowledge that the danger was real. Walter had lived inside that feeling for three years and it had bent him in half. Sitting there, I finally understood why.

Raymond wasn't a blowhard. He was precise. That was worse.

"I'm angry," I said. "That's a different thing entirely."

Eli stood. "So what do we do?"

"We drive to Coldbrook in the morning, like we said. But tonight, before you write anything down, I need you to call Howard Pryce. Tonight. Tell him we're coming and tell him to lock down every scrap of paper he's got."

"Raymond will know we're moving."

"He already knows. He called me within an hour of you sitting down at my table. He's had eyes on you since before you walked in that door." I picked up the envelope. "Waiting isn't a strategy anymore."

Eli pulled out his phone. His hands weren't steady, but he dialed. I listened to him leave a message for Howard Pryce — careful, clear, only a small tremble under it.

"What if he doesn't call back?" Eli asked.

"He will. Walter trusted him. Walter trusted you. Your husband had better instincts than he ever gave himself credit for."

Eli looked down at the table. His throat worked.

"He talked about you every time I saw him," he said. "He kept a picture in his wallet. The two of you by a lake, mountains behind you."

"Moosehead Lake," I said. "Maine. The year before Peter was born."

"He said it was his favorite because you were laughing at something he'd said, and you didn't know he was looking at you."

My eyes stung. I didn't let it go any further than that.

"Come on," I said. "I'll drive you home."

Out on the sidewalk, the street was quiet. A car sat across the road with its engine running. It had been there when we arrived. As we stepped out, it pulled away from the curb.

Eli saw it too. Neither of us said anything.

I unlocked my car, started it, and my phone buzzed on the passenger seat. Unknown number. Four words.