She answered on the second ring of the second call.

She didn't speak first.

A pause.

Then a voice she had not heard in twenty-five years — smooth, unhurried, the voice of a man who had spent decades being the most comfortable person in every room.

"Lucienne."

"Harlan."

Another pause.

Shorter.

"It's been a long time."

"It has."

"I heard you had an eventful afternoon." His tone was warm.

Conversational.

The tone of a man who believed he was still in control of the situation.

"I hope everything is all right."

"Everything is fine." She kept her voice level.

"Why are you calling?"

"I wanted to reach out personally.

Before things got complicated." A soft sound — not quite a laugh.

"You know how these old misunderstandings can spiral if people don't communicate."

"Is that what this is?

A misunderstanding?"

"Lucienne." His voice shifted — just slightly.

A degree cooler.

"Daniel Ashworth has had a very difficult life.

I'm sure whatever he's told you tonight has been colored by that.

By bitterness.

By the choices he made."

Across the island, Daniel sat perfectly still.

He could hear the voice through the phone.

She could tell by the way his jaw set.

"He made no choices," she said.

"You made them for him."

Silence.

"I want to meet," Harlan said.

"Tomorrow.

Somewhere quiet.

Just the two of us.

I think if we sit down together, I can explain a great deal."

"I'm sure you can."

"There are things about your father's situation at that time that you don't know.

Things that would change how you see all of this." The warmth was back in his voice.

Practiced and precise.

"I protected your family, Lucienne.

I made a very hard decision because your father asked me to."

She felt Daniel's eyes on her.

"My father asked you," she repeated.

"He did.

I have documentation." A beat.

"Which is why I'd prefer we speak privately before you do anything you can't take back."

She looked at the forged letter on the counter.

"Tomorrow," she said.

"Noon.

The Aldrich Club."

"Perfect." He sounded pleased.

Relieved.

"I'll see you then."

She ended the call.

Daniel exhaled slowly.

"He's going to say your father ordered him to do it."

"Yes."

"Did he?"

She was quiet for a moment.

Her father had been a complicated man.

Brilliant and cold and deeply uncomfortable with anything he couldn't control.

Including her relationship with a young man from a family he considered beneath them.

"I don't know," she said honestly.

"My father is gone.

I can't ask him."

"So Harlan uses him as a shield.

A man who can't defend himself."

"That's exactly what he's going to do." She closed the folder.

"Which is why we need to be ready before noon tomorrow."

"We?"

She looked at him.

He was still thin, still hollow-cheeked, still wearing a coat that didn't fit.

But his eyes were sharp.

They had always been sharp.

"You were there," she said.

"You have the letter.

You remember everything he said to you that night.

Your testimony — your presence — is the one thing he cannot explain away."

Daniel was quiet.

"I'm not exactly a credible witness right now," he said.

"Look at me."

"I'm looking at you." She said it without flinching.

"And I see a man Harlan Voss spent twenty-five years trying to erase.

That makes you the most important person in this room."

He looked down at the bracelet on his wrist.

"I need a shower," he said finally.

"And something to eat."

"Both of those things exist here."

He almost smiled.

It didn't quite make it to his face, but it was close.

She showed him to the guest room.

Clean towels.

A set of clothes — her building kept a small supply for overnight guests, a habit she had developed after too many late board meetings.

The shirt was slightly too large.

The trousers needed a belt.

When she came back to the kitchen, she called her lawyer.

"Grace." She kept her voice low.

"I need you at my office at seven tomorrow morning.

Bring everything we have on Voss." A pause.

"And I need you to find out everything you can about a man named Marcus Delaney.

He's been my driver for three years.

I need to know who hired him and what he was paid."

She hung up and stood at the window.

The city was fully dark now.

The lights of Cresthaven spread out below her — a million lit windows, a million lives, none of them aware that twenty-five years of buried truth were about to come to the surface.

Her phone buzzed again.

A text.

Unknown number.

Four words.

*Don't do this, Lucienne.*

She set the phone face-down on the counter.

In the guest room, the shower came on.

She stood at the window and listened to the sound of it — the ordinary, human sound of a person who had been out in the cold for too long, finally getting warm.