What there was, instead, was the plain fact that Elke’s undoing was already in motion and had nothing to do with me.

Because Ames Lockridge, before he died, had gone looking — and what he found when he looked was not only the truth about his grandchildren.

It was where the money had been going.

For years Elke had made herself useful to the family’s finances, and for years she had been quietly moving company funds into accounts that were her own, confident that no one who mattered was paying attention.

Ames had been paying attention.