The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Kimbrough

Dolores Kimbrough still parked in the same space, and she still arrived at ten to seven.

I was waiting by the glass door of the fourth floor when the elevator opened.

She stopped with her coffee halfway to her mouth.

She was sixty-three now, with short gray hair and her reading glasses on a chain, and she looked at me for a long moment.

"Kid," she said.

"Hi, Dolores."

"Five years, and you show up at dawn with a folder."

"It's a big folder," I said.

She unlocked the door and held it for me.

She did not ask me anything in the elevator lobby, or in the hall, or while she turned on the lights in the little glass conference room at the end.

Conference Room C still had the long table where I used to spread out ledgers.

My old black stapler sat on the windowsill, where someone had left it.

I put the gray folder on the table.

Dolores sat down across from me and folded her hands.

"Tell me," she said.

I told her in nine sentences.

I did not cry, and I was proud of that until I saw her face.

She took off her glasses and cleaned them on her cardigan, which was what she did when she was angry on someone's behalf.

"The husband," she said.

"Yes."

"I told you that was a warning, kid."

"I know you did."

"I told you that a man who says that at dinner has a ledger he doesn't want read."

"I know."

She did not say the rest.

She did not need to.

She put her glasses back on and pulled the folder toward her.

She turned three tabs in silence.

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