The Wrong Suspect

"It was Ted, of course," Curtis Lindqvist said, folding his napkin.

We were at a hotel café on Friday morning, at a corner table he had picked. He was forty-four, tanned, with the smooth, slightly apologetic manner of a man who has billed a great deal of money for sounding sorry. My father's firm used to employ him. Three years ago, after the funeral, he had left to open his own practice, and four months ago my husband had hired it.

He had called me at seven. He wanted, he said, to clear the air before Monday.

"Ted Alvarado asked me to draft the waiver," he said. "Told me it was a routine housekeeping filing for the holding company. He gave me his portal credentials so I could upload it for him. I should have called you. I'm ashamed I didn't."

"He asked you to draft it."

"He said he'd cleared it with the trustee." Curtis spread his hands. "With you."

"Did you ever confirm that with me?"

"I confirmed it with the signature page."

"Which says Marchetti-Tarrant."

He winced. "Ted gave me the formatting. I take responsibility for not catching it."

I watched him drink his tea. He was very good. Nothing in his face moved that shouldn't.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because Dominic has no idea," he said. "I'd like to protect him. He's under enormous pressure, and if this reaches the board on Monday, it will finish him."

Yesterday morning my husband had told me Curtis had reviewed every line. Today Curtis was telling me my husband knew nothing. Both could not be true, and I filed that away.

"I'll think about it," I said.

I called Ted from the parking garage. Straight to voicemail. I called again. Voicemail. His assistant said he had gone home sick.

I sat in the car with the engine off and worked through it the way my father taught me to, on paper, in two columns.

His login, his silence, his hand on that ring when I asked. The man who had run our numbers for twenty years and knew exactly where every account was hidden.

The other column had one thing in it: my gut.

And my gut had let me marry Dominic Tarrant.

I looked at the Market Hall from where I was parked. The oak leaf on the banner had been taken down for the weekend. Nothing hung on the pole but a strip of loose rope.

My phone buzzed. Walter Ingram, chairman of the board. Three words: Call me tonight.

I didn't. I told myself it was because I had no proof.

The truth was that if Ted had sold me out, I did not yet know how to tell the one person who had always been kind about my father.