A tall man got out under a black umbrella, a thick briefcase in one hand, and when he stepped into the porch light I knew him at once.

Curtis Beaumont.

Beaumont was a managing partner at Beaumont & Croft, the commercial brokerage that had represented the resort developer during Shawn’s whole fraudulent scheme three years before.

When the criminal investigation opened, he had hidden behind his firm’s attorneys, called himself an innocent victim of my son-in-law’s deception, and cut every tie to Shawn the instant it was convenient.

I did not ask him up onto the dry porch.

I stood at the top of my own stairs with my hands on the railing I had sanded smooth myself.