Five Hours a Year novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Alec's POV: The Missing Closing

Alec's POV

The office was empty at six on Sunday morning, and I had the whole forty-fourth floor to myself.

I turned on one lamp and sat down at my own desk.

The Brandt file was in the second drawer, where it had been since spring.

I opened it.

The Brandt closing had happened in March.

The final page was signed and stamped, and the client had sent us a bottle of scotch.

I read the date four times.

There had been no closing on the day of Leah's father's funeral.

There had been no deal to lose and no forty jobs, only a text that came when Leah's hand was in mine.

I put the folder down.

I opened my calendar next, the one Desmond's assistant managed, and searched it for Brandt.

Nothing for the funeral date.

Then I did what I should have done six years ago, and typed Brandt into the firm's billing records.

The system gave me 212 entries.

I sat very still.

Every one of them was a Desmond Marr entry, and every one was billed to Brandt Industries under strategy and urgent calls, anywhere from one to four hours at a time.

Brandt had been a client for eleven years, and in all that time it had never had more than one small deal a year.

I sorted by date.

I took out a pen and a legal pad, and began to write down every date.

My hand didn't want to hold the pen.

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