There had never been a final audit.
I showed Evelyn the message.
“Do you recognize the number?”
“No.”
She called Caleb Reed. He asked me to forward a screenshot and warned me not to respond.
For the rest of the evening, I tried to focus on Noah. We ordered pizza, watched an animated movie, and turned his cardboard fort into a sleeping tent. Yet my mind kept returning to the same question.
What had my father audited before he died?
After Noah fell asleep, I opened an encrypted storage account I had not accessed in years. My father created it for family records, placing copies of property deeds, insurance documents, and business papers inside.
Most folders were familiar.
One was not.
Its name consisted of a date: October 14, eleven years earlier.
Three days before my father entered the hospital.
The folder required a second password. I tried his birthday, my mother’s name, and the address of his first office. Nothing worked.
