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“Yes.”

“Thirty years.” For a moment, Sam thought there might be something behind the old man’s face, but if there was, it was hidden masterfully. “And somebody puts her down in a parking garage like a stray. What are the police doing?”

“Working it. There’s not much I can share, and less that I have.”

“Hm.” Joel’s gaze drifted to the window and came back. “What are you doing for her?”

“The firm offered to cover her arrangements, but she had prepaid for them. We are holding a small memorial service locally, though. She’d bought a place in Florida with her partner; she was going to retire down there. I offered to have her belongings moved down there at our expense.”

“I heard.” Two words, clipped. “Retiring. At the end of the month, no less.” Joel’s lip curled. “Thirty years, and she was going to walk out the door in the middle of the worst quarter this company has had in a decade. That is not loyalty, Sam.”

“Everyone retires eventually, Dad.”

“Not in the middle of a fire. She knew better. She should have known better.” He said it as though Leigh’s dying had been one more item of poor timing, a meeting scheduled without checking his calendar. “Hire a moving company and be done with it, I guess. Doubt I’ll be out of here for the memorial service. You should have Henry or Rick say a few words.”

Sam wasn’t going to let either one of those men say one damn word at the service. They’d never been nice to Leigh from what he’d seen, only tolerating her because they were afraid of Joel.

“The movers can handle the household things,” Sam said. “The dishes, the furniture. I’m going to pack her personal items myself.”

Something changed in Joel’s expression, and it wasn’t happiness.

It was small, and if Sam hadn’t spent too many years reading this man for even the tiniest and most imperceptible moods, he’d have missed it.

“Her personal items,” Joel repeated, his lip curled in derision. “What personal items?”

“I don’t know yet. Photographs. Papers. Whatever’s in a desk and a condo after thirty years. I haven’t been through it.”

“Then why on earth would you handle it yourself?” The words came out sharply, more sharply than was warranted for the situation. Then, as if he heard it too, Joel smoothed it back into contempt. “Let the police look at whatever needs looking at and let a stranger box the rest. You don’t rummage through a dead woman’s private life. It’s undignified, and it’s not your job. Why on earth would you do something like that? If you need something to do, I can suggest a few things.”

That sounded like pure Joel Winslow. Why talk something out when he could simply make a threat?

“It’s one afternoon,” Sam said, determined not to argue with a sick old man.

“It’s a foolish afternoon.” Joel sank back into the pillows, spent, the flash of steel guttering out. “You were always sentimental. Too sentimental. You’re soft. Your whole generation wouldn’t have survived back in the day. But do what you want. You will anyway. Never listened worth a damn, did you?”

Ah, father and son together. Sam had always known he was a disappointment to the old man. In a way, it was nice to hear that it wasn’t just Sam he held in contempt but an entire generation of people, too.

At least he wasn’t alone.

Sam stood from the hard metal chair, deciding that that was enough quality time with Joel. As usual, nothing good had come from this meeting.

He shouldn’t have been shocked by his father’s cold attitude, but even for him, this was low. Joel had known Leigh for thirty years, and in ten minutes he had reduced her to a box to be handed off. Whatever else Sam did this week, he was not going to let Leigh Gabler be handed off as if her life meant nothing. She’d worked hard, and she’d made a difference.

“Get some rest, Dad,” he said, and meant it, and left before either of them could ruin it.

But one thing was clear. Joel didn’t want Sam to treat Leigh with any care or respect. He wanted to push it away and pretend it all never happened. That was his father’s go-to response to anything unpleasant that he didn’t want to deal with.

This time, however, Joel wasn’t going to get his way.

The Facilities and Maintenance floor was two levels down, but it felt like a completely different building. No glass from floor to ceiling, no expansive views, just fluorescent lights and a long corridor of storerooms with clipboards hung by the doors.

Alli walked those floors with her own clipboard held at the exact angle of a woman who belonged there, which she’d learned from a television program. She simply needed to look like she had a reason to be there.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just a random employee checking inventory tags on furniture.

She’d already walked the office floors, looking for the items on the purchase order, but she hadn’t found any so far. Actually, walking through the facilities and maintenance department had been her last stop, since the paperwork said the desks and chairs were purchased for accounting, human resources, and the legal department. Not for storage or future use.

She was in the third storeroom, and on the third page of a supply order that kept promising things she had yet to find, when a voice came from behind her.