He was the one who noticed I was good with numbers before anyone else did.

He was the one who told me, when I was sixteen and my parents were pushing me toward something showier, that there was honor in being the person who keeps the books honest, that the world runs on trust and trust runs on somebody, somewhere, refusing to fudge a number.

I became a forensic accountant, in the end, largely because of him.

He would have found it fitting, what my training let me do for him at the end.

He would have found it more than fitting.

I think — I have come to think — that he counted on it.