Fifty yards away, standing perfectly still in the flowing river of travelers, was my mother.

And beside her, holding a thick gray legal folder stamped with formal labels, stood Oliver Vance — the senior corporate counsel for my family and my company, a man I had trusted with everything, a man who had, it was beginning to dawn on me, been trusted with a great deal more than I ever knew.

Chapter 8 — Hand Me That Folder

I put the phone in my pocket without hanging up, and I crossed the concourse toward my mother before she could take a single step closer to Rosalind and the boys.

“Hand me that folder, Oliver,” I said, and I stepped directly into my lawyer’s path.

Oliver tightened his grip on the gray cardboard and shook his head, retreating into the smooth professional calm I had heard him use to end a hundred negotiations.