That was the miscalculation the whole family had built their lives on, and the letter in my hands was the proof of how completely they had misjudged the quiet man in the armchair.

Eighteen months before he died, he had discovered the theft.

He’d found a discrepancy — a small one, the way these things always announce themselves first, a statement that didn’t match his memory — and instead of confronting his son, instead of the tearful scene they might have been able to manage and explain away, he had done something far more dangerous.

He had gone quiet.

He had hired a private investigator and a forensic document examiner of his own.

He had reconstructed the entire paper trail, transfer by transfer, forgery by forgery, and assembled it into a record so complete that it could not be argued with.