And the investigators had recovered something else, something that turned the financial case into something graver.

Messages, among the three of them, in the days before the foyer — messages in which they discussed, in plain language, how forcing me to surrender my ownership would finally eliminate what they called, among themselves, “the Mabel problem.” They had put it in writing.

They had planned it.

The thing they did to me in that foyer had a paper trail leading into it as well as out of it.

Chapter 14 — That Word Sounded Different

Flynn stood up when I came into the room.