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I look at it. “It’s fine.”

“One of the teeth is bent.”

“It still works.”

His jaw tightens.

I watch him pick it up.

“I’ll have it replaced.”

“Silas, it’s a five-dollar hair clip.”

“Precisely. There is no reason to tolerate defective equipment.”

He slips it into his jacket pocket.

I stare at him. “Did you just confiscate my hair clip?”

“I am replacing it.”

“Am I getting the old one back?”

A pause. “That won’t be necessary.”

And then he leaves. I sit there looking at the empty spot beside my keyboard.

My new employer is either the strangest billionaire alive or he has a deeply concerning interest in women’s hair accessories.

Possibly both.

I make a mental note to keep my hairbrush out of sight.

The financial records are extraordinary. Every entry is meticulous. Every figure balanced. Every receipt filed and cross-referenced. It’s the most beautifully maintained financial chaos I have ever seen. Chaos, because the system is a nightmare. Filing by decade works fine if you have three decades. This office has filing cabinets that go back to what appears to be the 1890s.

The 1890s.

I pull a ledger from the earliest cabinet. Leather-bound. The pages are thick, slightly yellowed. The handwriting inside is small and angular and absolutely precise.

I know this handwriting. I signed an NDA alongside this handwriting yesterday.

I set the ledger down carefully. Pick up another. 1920s. Same hand. 1940s. Same hand. 1987, the most recent fully handwritten set. Same hand.

I sit at my desk and stare at the wall and my accountant brain does what it always does: it runs the numbers. The numbers don’t work. Not unless Silas Lowe is considerably older than his late-thirties face suggests. Not unless “several decades” was the understatement of the century.

Mara said ancient. I assumed ancient meant old money and a bad attitude. Mara is going to have to start being more specific with her adjectives.

I pull the trust documents from the east cabinet. The oldest trust was established in 1847. A Lowe family trust. The signature at the bottom is different from the handwriting in the ledgers, but the later amendments bear a signature I recognize from the financial records. Silas Lowe.

I need to talk to him. But first, there’s one more ledger I want.

Naturally, it’s on the highest shelf of the tallest filing cabinet in the room, because apparently a century and a half of wealth cannot buy a man a sensible storage system.

I retrieve the little wooden step ladder from the corner.

The first two steps are fine. On the third, I reach for the ledger. It’s heavier than I expected. The ladder shifts.

“Oh, crap.”