Chapter 9: The Statements

Dalton's POV

I had not read a statement in six years.

That was the first thing I understood, at eleven o'clock on Tuesday night, sitting alone on the fortieth floor with a laptop and a cold coffee.

I had never looked at my own cards.

My father had never let me.

After he died, Lucinda said she would take care of it, and I had said thank you, and I had meant it as the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.

It took forty minutes to reset the password on an account I had never logged into.

Then the whole thing opened like a drawer.

Six years of charges, in a column, with dates.

I started at the top, and I read every line.

Jewelers. Always jewelers. A diamond bracelet in March. A pair of earrings in June. A watch she told me was a gift for her father.

Trips. Lisbon, with a hotel suite. Cabo, with a villa. A spa in Arizona, three times.

A lease, paid monthly, for a unit in Lincoln Park.

The sheet she'd handed round at my birthday dinner had said the lease was Susie's.

I had stared at that word on Saturday night and thought, I've never seen her there, and I had not said so.

I clicked on the lease.

It showed an address and a name on the lease, and the name was not Susie Sedlak.

I called the building.

At eleven forty at night a night doorman answered, bored.

"Unit 6C?" he said. "That's an older lady. Mrs. Beaconsfield. She's been here three years. Her daughter comes by on Sundays."

I thanked him and hung up and sat very still.

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