The smell of burning hair is something you never forget.

Daniel spread three pages across the dining room table.

Grant came in from the garden five minutes later, his composure back in place, and stood over the documents without touching them.

"Walk me through it," he said.

"Callahan Pacific was dissolved eighteen months ago," Daniel said.

"During the wind-down, there were a series of wire transfers — eleven of them over six months — from the Pacific subsidiary accounts to a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands." He pointed to a column of figures on the first page.

"The holding company is called Meridian Shore LLC.

It received a total of four point three million dollars before Pacific was closed."

Grant stared at the page.

"Who authorized the transfers?" he asked.

"On paper, the CFO of Pacific — a man named Gerald Foss.

But Foss died of a heart attack fourteen months ago, so he can't be questioned." Daniel paused.

"However, the authorization codes used to execute each transfer were generated from a single device.

A laptop registered to Callahan Industrial's executive suite."

"My office," Grant said.

"Your office," Daniel confirmed.

"But the access logs show those codes were generated during hours when you were documented as being elsewhere.

Board meetings.

Site visits.

Your calendar is very precise."

"Someone used my office while I was away," Grant said.

"Someone with access."

"Someone who knew your systems well enough to generate authorization codes without triggering the fraud alerts." Daniel looked at him.

"Grant — Renata moved into the estate eight months ago.

But she was in your life before that.

How long before?"

The silence stretched.

"Two years," Grant said.

"We met about two months after Claire d*ed."

Daniel didn't say anything.

He didn't need to.

"You think she was already positioned," Grant said.

It wasn't a question.

"I think Claire found the Pacific transfers," Daniel said.

"I think that's what she was going to tell you when she got home.

And I think someone made sure she didn't get home."

Grant put both hands flat on the table.

He stood there, very still, looking at the documents.

"The accident investigation," he said.

"It was handled by the county.

Standard procedure.

No one looked at it as anything other than a weather-related crash."

"I've already made a call," Daniel said.

"To someone I trust at the state level.

They're pulling the original file tonight." He paused.

"Grant, if Renata was involved in Claire's d*ath, the leverage she's claiming to have isn't evidence against you.

It's evidence she's been sitting on to protect herself.

She's not offering you information.

She's trying to find out how much you know."

Grant looked up.

"She doesn't know about the access logs," he said.

"No," Daniel said.

"She doesn't."

"And she doesn't know we've already pulled the Pacific records."

"No."

Grant straightened up.

He picked up one of the documents, looked at it for a moment, and set it back down.

"Set the meeting," he said.

"This afternoon.

Let her think she's holding the cards."

---

I kept Lily in the upstairs sitting room while the meeting happened below.

I could hear nothing from up there — the house was too large, the walls too thick.

But I watched the clock.

Lily sat beside me on the window seat, her pebble in her palm, turning it over and over with her thumb.

She had found a picture book on the shelf — one I hadn't seen before, its spine faded — and she held it open on her lap without reading it.

Just holding it.

"Your dad is going to be okay," I told her.

"He's very good at his job."

She turned the pebble over.

Over.

"And you're going to be okay too," I said.

"I know it doesn't feel that way right now.

But you are."

She looked up at me.

Then she held the pebble out, flat on her palm, offering it.

I shook my head gently.

"That's yours."

She considered this.

Then she closed her fist around it again and went back to the window.

---

The meeting lasted forty minutes.

Grant came upstairs afterward.

He stood in the sitting room doorway and looked at Lily, then at me.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"She came in with her attorney and a folder of documents she claimed were communications between Claire and a third party — supposedly proving Claire was planning to expose Grant for the Pacific transfers herself." He paused.

"She said Claire had gone to a journalist.

That the accident interrupted that meeting.

That she, Renata, had been protecting Grant for two years by sitting on this information."

"That's—" I stopped.

"She was trying to make herself the hero."

"Yes.

She wanted full immunity from all claims in exchange for the folder." He looked at his hands.

"Daniel let her finish.

Then he put the access logs on the table.

The ones showing the authorization codes came from my office during documented absences."

"What did she do?"

"Her attorney asked for a recess." Grant's mouth was a flat line.

"They came back seven minutes later and asked what we wanted."

"What did you say?"

"Daniel said we wanted the folder, a full accounting of every access she had to Callahan Industrial systems during the past two years, and her cooperation with the state investigators who will be reviewing Claire's accident file." He paused.

"He also said that if she declined, we would be filing a formal complaint with the district attorney's office by five o'clock."

I waited.

"She signed," Grant said.

"Everything.

Her attorney looked like he wanted to be somewhere else entirely."

The room was very quiet.

Lily had turned from the window and was watching her father.

"It's not over," Grant said.

"The state investigation will take time.

There may be charges.

There may not be — it depends on what the accident file shows.

But she is out of this house.