Chapter 12: The Ledger

The glass had been swept by morning, and plywood covered the study window.

Cade sat behind the desk with the black notebook in front of him and a bandage under his shirt.

Marlo was in the kitchen with the baseball bat, making pancakes.

The smell of butter and burnt sugar drifted down the hall.

"Sit," Cade said.

I sat.

"I know you photographed page one."

"I know you know."

"I know who you sent it to."

My hands went cold in my lap.

"You've known since the gala," I said.

"Since you gave me your name."

He opened the notebook and turned it around.

"Read it," he said.

I read page one again, slowly.

"That's Thurston Cromwell's crime," he said. "I recorded the call from a stairwell in May and I've kept it ever since."

"Why didn't you use it?"

"Because the league would've frozen the club's title during the Harlan renewal, and Mavis would have lost everything."

"So you waited."

"So I waited."

He turned the pages for me, past the notes, to the long column down the left side.

Dates, six years of them, the first of every month.

Beside each one, the same figure.

Nine thousand dollars.

Beside the first line, in the same blue ink, were two letters and a word.

"Loan."

My eyes burned.

"My father," I said.

"I stood at his funeral in the back row," Cade said.

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