when you knew how to read it. The numbers were too round. The approvals came too often after hours. The supporting documents were present but thin, dressed up in consulting language that tried hard not to say what it was.
She clicked into the attached authorization packet and found Ryan’s name on the approval line. Not as a witness. Not as a secondary reviewer. As a signer.
She sat back.
Mrs. Parker said nothing. Silence, between people who had worked together long enough, was its own form of communication. It meant: keep going.
Claire opened the next file.
This one connected a reimbursement request to renovation work at Calloway House. The invoices were attached and technically complete, but the vendor listed was an entity Claire had never encountered in any Silverline context. The mailing address in the file was familiar. She had seen it written on Christmas cards stacked in
