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I hated how easily the thought fit the pieces Mr. Vale had given me. I hated even more that part of me immediately tried to defend the man I’d spent twenty-seven years married to. My Paul couldn’t have done that. Except this Paul was twenty-five, and I’d already learned how much I’d forgotten about the beginning of everything.

“What happens now?”

“I keep working.”

“And if you find proof?”

“My client decides what to do with it.”

“I want to know.”

“I understand.”

“No.” I stepped closer. “If you find something involving my trust, my father, or Paul and this marriage, I want to know before Friday.”

He studied me.

“I can’t promise to disclose my client’s information.”

“Then tell your client that one of the people whose money everyone seems to be discussing would appreciate being included.”

The corner of his mouth moved. “I can do that.”

He gave me another card and this time I took it.

Downstairs, the store had filled while we were upstairs. Brian had apparently decided BACK IN FIVE was more of a philosophical statement than a time estimate and had reopened the door. Van Halen played through the speakers while two teenage boys flipped through the rock section and a woman near the counter asked whether the Pointer Sisters were pop or dance.

Martin Vale left, disappearing into the crowd as neatly as he’d arrived.

I stood behind the counter holding his card.

Dean came down a minute later and for a while neither of us spoke.

Brian looked from him to me and wisely found something urgent to do.

Finally Dean said, “Are you going to call Paul?”

“Yes.” I put the investigator’s card into my purse. “But not yet.”

I thought about Paul’s face if I asked him now. He would know immediately that something was wrong, might deny everything, then again, he might tell me the truth. Or he might give me half of it because Paul had always believed difficult things could wait until they became unavoidable.

I wasn’t going into that conversation with five frightening words and an investigator’s careful refusal to draw conclusions.

My whole future felt rigged and I wanted to know what Alan had done and what Paul knew.

And most of all, I wanted to know how long he’d known, only then I would confront him.

13

Paul

Monday — August 20, 1984

My father closed his office door, and that alone told me that whatever he was about to say was worse than anything he’d admitted so far.

During business hours, Alan Ellsworth disliked closed doors because he believed they made employees nervous, and nervous employees whispered. He preferred the brokerage to feel calm and prosperous no matter what was happening behind the scenes, which meant fresh flowers in the reception area, polished brass on the doors, coffee served on a silver tray when important clients came in, and conversations about losing money were conducted in voices low enough that no one walking past could hear them.

By six-thirty that evening, most of the staff had already gone home. The receptionist’s desk outside sat empty, the phones had stopped ringing every thirty seconds, and the late sun came through the blinds in long gold lines that stretched across the carpet and the edge of my father’s desk.