The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Gray Folder

Ella walks back past Judson and Daphne and takes his folder of paper records; the first page carries her signature on a wire she never signed.

I left my car running at the curb and walked back up my own steps.

The front door was still open.

Judson had gone back inside, and I could hear him in the study, moving fast.

Daphne stood in the hall in her stocking feet, because her shoes were in my car.

She held his jacket against her chest.

"Ella," she said. "Please. Let me explain."

"You're barefoot," I said.

I walked past her.

The study smelled like his cologne and like her.

Judson was crouched by the little gas fireplace in the corner.

He had the gray accordion folder open on his knee, and a fistful of papers in his other hand.

The pilot light was already on, and a corner of the first page had gone brown.

"Put it down," I said.

He looked up at me, and for the first time that night he looked afraid.

"This is company business," he said.

"Then you won't mind my reading it."

"You don't work for the company."

"I lent it three hundred and ten thousand dollars," I said. "That makes me a creditor."

I crossed the room and put my hand flat on the folder.

He tried to pull it away.

His hand was bigger than mine, and he had always been stronger.

But I had been taking files out of hostile hands since I was twenty-four.

I did not pull.

I stepped on the toe of his loafer and pressed my thumb into the soft place between his wrist bones.

His fingers opened.

The folder dropped into my arms, and the papers in his other hand fluttered onto the rug.

"Ella, for God's sake," he said.

"You labeled these tabs yourself," I said. "I showed you how in our second year."

"You can't just take it."

I stepped back and held the folder against my chest.

Daphne had come to the doorway.

"You're being dramatic," she said.

Her voice was soft and reasonable, the one she used on waiters.

"You're standing in my study without your shoes on," I said.

She flushed to the collarbone.

"It was one time," she said.

Judson shot her a look that said stop talking.

It told me everything I needed to know about how many times.

I walked toward the door, and Judson moved to block it.

"Put the folder on the desk," he said.

"No."

"Ella."

"Move," I said.

"I'm not going to let you walk out of here with my records."

I did not raise my voice.

"Judson, the neighbor's garage has a camera that looks straight at our front door."

"She sends you the clips whenever a package is left on our step."

"If you put your hands on me, that clip goes to my lawyer tonight, and to your mother in the morning."

His jaw worked.

Behind him Daphne said, in a small voice, "Judson, let her go."

That was the moment I knew he would let me go.

Not because of the camera, and not because of his mother.

Because even Daphne could see he had lost the room.

He stepped aside.

I walked past him and out through the hall.

I did not look back at the entry table, where her shoes had been.

I went down the steps and across the lawn to my car.

I locked the doors, which I had never done in my own driveway.

Then I put the folder on the passenger seat on top of Daphne's shoes and turned on the dome light.

My hands were shaking now that no one was watching.

I opened it to the first tab.

It was marked Q3 in Judson's square handwriting.

The top page was a wire authorization from Haskell Freight to a title company on Wisconsin Avenue.

The amount was one hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred dollars.

The memo line said Pier Street, unit 6B.

I knew that address.

It was the building where Daphne had moved last year, after a "fight" with Lars.

I had helped her carry boxes up to the sixth floor.

I read the authorization block at the bottom.

Two signatures were required for any wire over fifty thousand dollars.

One was Judson's.

The other said E. Tennant in blue ink.

It was my name, and it was my signature, with the tall E and the little hook on the final t.

I looked at it for a long time.

Then I looked closer.

My real signature has a closed loop at the bottom of the E.

I have made it that way since I was fourteen.

This E was open.

I had never signed this paper in my life.

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