“No.”
“Escrow?”
“Possibly.”
“Political fund?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you photograph the ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Where are the images?”
Liam hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything.
“You destroyed them.”
“No.”
“Then where are they?”
“I sent them to you.”
I stared at him.
The heart monitor beside my bed accelerated.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
“That is impossible.”
“I mailed them.”
“You mailed financial records?”
“Not to your house.”
My confusion deepened.
“To your office.”
I shook my head.
“I never received them.”
“I know.”
“How could you know?”
Liam looked sick.
“Because two weeks later, Dad’s attorney called me.”
I felt cold despite the blanket.
“Mr. Halpern?”
“Yes.”
“He said the envelope had been delivered to the wrong place.”
“Where?”
Liam’s eyes met mine.
“Apex Development.”
Everything in the room stopped.
Eight years ago, Apex had been operating from a cramped second-floor office above a printing company.
I had spent nearly every evening there.
So had Ethan.
I pictured the receptionist.
The mailroom shelf.
Boxes stacked against unfinished walls.
An envelope addressed to me.
A ledger connected to my dead father.
And Ethan.
“Who signed for it?” I whispered.
Liam’s answer was almost too quiet to hear.
“Ethan.”
I turned away.
“No.”
“Maya—”
“No.”
The word came out harder.
I had spent years studying fraudulent transactions.
I knew exactly how people reacted when a pattern finally became visible.
First, denial.
Not because the evidence was weak.
Because the evidence was too strong.
I looked back at Liam.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I called.”
“You should have kept calling!”
“I did!”
The force of his answer silenced me.
Liam stood abruptly.
“I called eleven times in three days. Ethan answered twice. He said you were overwhelmed. Then you called me and told me to stop interfering in your relationship.”
My lips parted.
“I never said that.”
“I heard your voice.”
“I never said that.”
Liam stared at me.
Detective Ruiz slowly lowered her tablet.
“Dr. Carter,” she said, “are you certain it was your sister?”
Liam looked at me again.
The color drained from his face.
“It sounded exactly like her.”
My skin prickled.
Eight years ago.
Long before the fake forensic portal.
Long before I requested an audit.
Someone had sent my brother a call using my voice.
Or a recording assembled well enough to convince the person who had known me my entire life.
“That kind of technology wasn’t widely available then,” I said.
“Not like today,” Ruiz replied. “But voice splicing existed. Especially if someone had enough recordings.”
I thought of Ethan’s early obsession with saving everything.
Voicemails.
Video clips.
Old phone messages.
He used to call himself sentimental.
My hands began to shake.
Liam noticed.
“Maya.”
I drew a slow breath.
Then another.
Ethan had not simply reacted when I discovered financial problems six months ago.
He might have been hiding something before we were even married.
“What happened to the original ledger?” I asked.
Liam sat again.
“I still have it.”
I turned so quickly my ribs protested.
“Where?”
“In Dad’s old fishing cabin.”
I almost laughed.
Our father had owned a small cabin north of the city.
Calling it a fishing cabin was generous.
There were more books than fishing rods inside.
Dad used to disappear there for weekends when he was trying to solve a difficult business problem.
“Why there?”
“Because no one goes anymore.”
“You do.”
“Twice a year.”
I stared at my brother.
“You’ve been guarding it.”
His silence was the answer.
All those years.
Liam had known there was another secret.
He had carried it alone.
I understood why.
That did not make it hurt less.
“You should have trusted me.”
“I did.”
“No. You protected me.”
