The ledgers buried beneath the Lake House — the true history of how the Hale fortune was made — had not stayed buried.

We had used them, carefully and lawfully, to unwind the illegal holdings one by one, surrendering what had to be surrendered and turning over to federal authorities, through the proper channels, the evidence that needed turning over.

A great deal of it concerned men who had been my rivals, and some of it concerned men who had been my friends, and I made no exceptions, because exceptions were how the whole rotten thing had been held together in the first place.

I had stepped down.