“I NEED A BOYFRIEND BY TOMORROW!” — THE MAFIA BOSS OVERHEARD HIS MAID, AND HIS NEXT WORDS CHANGED EVERYTHING

I was halfway through folding fresh towels when Nina called back. I put the basket down and sat on the edge of my bed.

“The bank won't release the recording until we've completed the proper request,” she said. “But the compliance officer confirmed a woman presented identification bearing your name. The photograph appears to have been altered.”

“Who was she?”

“We don't know yet. I don't want you confronting anyone based on a description.”

I looked at the small framed picture of my father on the nightstand. He was grinning beside a crooked birthday cake. “Someone walked into a bank pretending to be me.”

“Yes. Which means the problem may extend beyond a forged signature. We will handle it methodically.”

Methodically. I held on to the word as if it were a railing.

The next morning I returned to work. Routine was a relief. I polished the banister, watered the ferns, and checked the guest rooms. Mrs. Bell assigned me lighter duties without making a fuss. Roman remained behind the closed door of his study. I told myself I was grateful.

At noon, Claire called. I almost ignored it. Then I remembered how frightened she'd looked in the bridal suite and answered.

“Can we meet?” she asked.

“Somewhere public.”

“Of course.”

We chose a bakery near the river. Claire arrived without makeup, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her looking so young.

“Ethan and I postponed the wedding,” she said before she sat down.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. He wants to know what his father did. So do I.”

She pushed a folder across the table. Inside were emails from Leonard Whitcomb's office, including a message Daniel had sent six weeks earlier. It referred to an identity verification appointment and a consultant named Evelyn Shaw.

“Who's Evelyn?” I asked.

“Daniel said she handled compliance for the project. Ethan says she wasn't on the official payroll.”

I photographed the pages and sent them to Nina. Claire watched me with red eyes.

“I should have told you sooner,” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

She flinched.

“I don't want to punish you forever. But I won't pretend this didn't happen because you're sorry.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand.”

I wasn't sure she did. But it was the first honest conversation we'd had in years.

Before leaving, she caught my hand. “Mom says Roman is dangerous.”

“Mom also said my trust didn't exist.”

“That doesn't mean she's wrong about everything.”

I knew that. The thought followed me back to the mansion.

That afternoon, I saw Roman in the greenhouse behind the east wing. He was kneeling beside a broken irrigation valve, speaking quietly with the gardener. The sight startled me. I'd imagined him incapable of doing anything as ordinary as getting mud on his hands.

When the gardener left, Roman noticed me in the doorway. “Did you need something?”

“I didn't know you liked plants.”

“My mother did.” He wiped his hands on a rag. “The greenhouse was hers.”

I looked at the orange trees and the rows of white orchids. “It's beautiful.”

“She thought beautiful things deserved care even when nobody was looking.”

For a moment he sounded nothing like the man whose name frightened Chicago. He sounded like a son who missed his mother.

I hesitated. “My lawyer found another name. Evelyn Shaw.”

His expression sharpened. “Tell Nina before you tell me anything else.”

“I already did.”

“Good.”

“Do you know her?”

“I've heard the name. She works through intermediaries. I can't tell you more without confirming it.”

I studied him. “Are you protecting me or protecting yourself?”

“Both may be true,” he said. “That's why you need your own attorney.”

I appreciated the honesty and hated that I appreciated it.

He glanced toward the door. “I also owe you something. Your employment here was arranged through the agency. I did not instruct them to hire you, but once I recognized your father's name, I reviewed the file. That crossed a line.”

“You should have told me.”

“Yes.”

“Don't do it again.”

“I won't.”

I looked at the orchids. “You can stop agreeing with everything I say. It's unsettling.”

A reluctant smile touched his face. “You haven't asked me to do anything unreasonable.”

“Yet.”

“I'm prepared.”

The warmth between us was brief, but real. Then his phone rang and the shutters came down behind his eyes.

That night, a message arrived from an unknown number: ASK ROMAN WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER'S LAST CONTRACT.

I stared at it until the words stopped making sense. Dad had died after a highway collision on his way home from a job site. The police called it an accident. There had been no suggestion otherwise.

I forwarded the message to Nina, then took it to Roman's study. He read it without speaking.

“What was his last contract?” I asked.

“A warehouse renovation on the South Side.”

“Who owned it?”

“A company associated with Leonard Whitcomb.”

My mouth went dry. “And you never thought to tell me that?”

“I didn't know it was his last job until after the accident.”

“Did you investigate?”

“Yes.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing proving the crash was deliberate. I won't turn your grief into a theory without evidence.”

I sat opposite him. “But you suspected something.”

“I suspected Whitcomb had cut corners on the site and that your father intended to report it. The crash occurred before he could submit the full report.”

The room seemed colder. “Where's the report?”

“An incomplete draft is in the archived company records. Your lawyer can request it.”

“Why didn't you give it to the police?”

“I gave them what I had. They found no connection to the collision.”

I believed he was telling me the truth as he knew it. That wasn't the same as knowing the whole truth.

The next morning Nina arranged for a formal request for the warehouse records. She also told me to avoid responding to anonymous messages. “Whoever sent it wants a reaction,” she said. “We won't give them one.”

For two days, life became an exhausting rotation of work, phone calls, and waiting. I slept badly. Every black sedan seemed suspicious. Every unfamiliar number made my pulse race. Roman never intruded, though a security officer discreetly asked whether I'd like an escort when I left the property. I said yes for the late-night trips and no for the daytime ones. Nobody argued.

On Friday, Nina invited me to her office to review new documents. The disputed bank appointment had been made using a phone number registered to a temporary business account. The account was connected to a consulting firm that had once employed Evelyn Shaw. More importantly, the bank had released a still image under a confidentiality agreement for legal review.

Nina turned her monitor toward me.

The woman wore a dark wig and oversized glasses. She was not my mother. Her face was familiar, though I couldn't place it immediately.

Then I noticed the small crescent-shaped scar near her left eyebrow.

I knew that scar.

The woman had stood beside Daniel at a holiday party two years earlier. He'd introduced her as a colleague. She'd asked strangely detailed questions about my birthday, my father's name, and the town where I'd grown up.

“Her name wasn't Evelyn,” I whispered.

Nina leaned forward. “What name did she use?”

“Marissa Vale.”

Nina wrote it down. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a moment, then said, “Sadi, I need to show you one more document.”

It was a corporate ownership filing. Evelyn Shaw and Marissa Vale were aliases associated with the same woman, according to the investigator's preliminary findings. The company that paid her consulting fees had received money from an account controlled by Daniel.

And that account had received its largest deposit three days after my father's death.

I read the date again and again.

The world had always been divided into before Dad died and after Dad died. Now someone had placed a payment directly on that dividing line.

“Does this mean Daniel had something to do with the accident?” I asked.

“No,” Nina said firmly. “It means there's a transaction we need explained. We do not know its purpose.”

I nodded, though the distinction was difficult to hold.

My phone vibrated. Claire's name appeared on the screen.

I answered. She was crying so hard I could barely understand her.

“Mom's gone,” she said. “She left the house. Her phone is off. And Daniel came by this morning.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted Dad's old files. Ethan wouldn't let him in.”

“Claire, where are you?”