That sounded like him.
Hale continued.
“He was proud of you, Laura. More than he ever said.”
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
I looked toward Grandpa’s photograph instead of Hale.
“He could have said it.”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly.
No defense. No excuses.
Just yes.
That made it harder.
Hale leaned against the edge of a console table.
“Your grandfather belonged to a generation that believed actions compensated for unsaid words. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.”
“What action is the blue folder?”
“I believe he wanted you to answer that yourself.”
“Where is it?”
Hale shook his head.
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
I stared at him.
“He made you deliver a warning about something he didn’t tell you how to find?”
“He said you would know where to look.”
“That sounds very much like Grandpa and very little like a practical plan.”
For the first time, Hale smiled.
“He also told me you’d say something like that.”
I looked again at the lighter in my palm.
It was heavier than I remembered.
Grandpa had carried it throughout my childhood, though I had never actually seen him use it. He quit smoking before I was born.
When I was nine, I once asked why he carried an empty lighter.
He had tapped it against the kitchen table.
“Because objects remember things people forget.”
At nine, I had thought that sounded profound.
At thirty-nine, I thought it sounded frustratingly like a clue.
I turned the lighter over.
The scratched initials H.W. were still visible along the bottom.
“Did Grandpa say anything else?”
“One thing.”
Hale hesitated.
“He said the folder wasn’t about money.”
That immediately told me Dad thought it was.
The Whitmore family had enough inherited property, investments, trusts, and charitable foundations to turn every disagreement into a financial one.
Dad understood affection poorly.
He understood assets perfectly.
“What did he say it was about?”
“Correction.”
I frowned.
“Correction?”
“That was his word.”
Before I could ask more, someone entered the corridor.
Brandon.
He had abandoned the scotch.
“Dad wants to leave.”
“I didn’t realize I was holding him hostage.”
Brandon shoved his hands into his pockets.
His suit was immaculate, as always. Navy. Custom tailoring. Shoes polished enough to reflect the ceiling lights.
He looked like the version of adulthood Dad had once planned for me.
Harvard.
Consulting.
Executive leadership.
Boards.
