The hidden door closed behind us just as the office door opened.
Justin and I stood in complete darkness.
Through the wall, voices drifted into the room.
One of them belonged to my father.
The other belonged to a woman.
“You were supposed to control your children,” she said.
My entire body stiffened.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it through walls and telephone receivers my whole childhood.
It had read bedtime stories to me.
It had whispered reassurance after nightmares.
Justin’s fingers tightened around my arm.
“No,” he breathed.
The woman continued.
“Kenneth failed. Maya failed. And now Sabrina has the ledger.”
My father answered quietly.
“You should never have involved her.”
The woman laughed.
It was soft, elegant, unmistakable.
I pressed my ear against the hidden door.
My mother had been buried seven years ago.
I had watched the coffin disappear into the ground.
Yet Evelyn Rollins was standing on the other side of the wall.
“Open the passage, Thomas,” she said. “Our daughter and I have unfinished business.”
