Chapter 14: Four Million

I read the name four times.

Leonard Thorndike.

Harborline was Leonard.

The man I'd handed the receipts to was the man Kendrick had been sending the money to.

I had carried the proof of what Kendrick was paying straight back to the man he was paying it to.

And Leonard had laughed at my pencil notes.

I sat down on the folding chair because my legs stopped holding me.

All day the phones rang.

Brides. Florists. A reporter from Albany.

I answered every one of them in my calm hotel voice.

"Mr. Mercer is unavailable. The company is fine. Your date is safe."

I didn't know if any of it was true.

At midnight I couldn't stand the cottage anymore.

The pastry kitchen light was on.

Chloe was there alone, the way she always was at midnight, setting the dough for the morning croissants.

She had flour to her elbows and a pencil behind her ear.

She looked up when I came in, and her face did something complicated.

"I saw the paper," she said.

"Everybody saw the paper."

"Your handwriting's on the front page, Gen."

"I know."

I sat on the stool by the proofing rack, where I used to sit when we were twelve and she was learning to roll pie crust from her mother.

"Who owns Harborline?" I said.

She stopped rolling.

"I don't know."

"Leonard Thorndike."

She put the rolling pin down very carefully.

"Chloe, you were in that study in July. You watched him sign. I need you to tell me everything. Not the part you promised to keep. All of it."

She wiped her hands on her apron for a long time.

"He cried," she said.

I didn't say anything.

"Your dad. When he signed. He wasn't sobbing or anything. Just tears coming down while he wrote his name."