The family portrait hung where it had always hung, in the center of the living room wall: my grandparents seated, my parents standing behind them, Chloe at my mother’s shoulder, and me at the very edge of the frame, twelve years old, half in shadow, looking like a guest at my own family’s picture.

I had always hated that photograph.

I lifted it off its hook, and it was heavier than a framed photograph should be, and when I turned it around I understood why he’d chosen it as the marker — because no one in that family would ever take down a portrait that flattered them.

Set into the wall behind it was a steel safe.

My hands were steady as I worked the dial to the combination he’d left me — my grandmother’s birthday, of course it was — and the door swung open, and inside, stacked with the neat precision of a man who had spent his life keeping careful books, were property deeds, bank statements, folders of canceled checks, three flash drives, and a single sealed envelope with my name across it in his shaking hand.

I opened the envelope first.