Bank statements.
Property records.
Wire transfers.
Every document carried the same name.
My mother’s.
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was impossible.
“No.”
The agent slid a photograph across the table.
It showed my mother standing beside a man I had never seen.
The date stamp was six months old.
Another photograph.
The same man entering a bank.
Another.
The two of them meeting inside a parking garage.
Another.
Stacks of cash being loaded into a vehicle.
My throat tightened.
“You’ve got the wrong person.”
“We don’t.”
She opened one of the file boxes.
“Your father contacted us four years ago.”
I stared at her.
“He believed someone was stealing money from his company.”
“What company?”
The agent looked surprised.
“You didn’t know?”
I shook my head.
My father had always called himself a consultant.
Nothing more.
The agent slowly sat down.
