The silence between us sat heavy and sour, cracking the quiet trust we had built over thirty years.

By two in the afternoon, the main reading room of the Crestview public library was gray and quiet.

Chloe sat beside me at a wooden computer desk near the local history archives.

She pulled up the state business registry on the glowing monitor.

“What was the exact name printed on that bank draft?” Chloe asked, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

“Oakridge Land Ventures Incorporated,” I said, reading from the scrap of paper in my hand.