Chapter 5 - THE BLUE LEDGER

I drove back to the hospital angry enough to miss my exit.

I had to circle three blocks.

That stupid mistake calmed me more than anything else could have.

By the time I reached Florence’s room, I could speak without shouting.

Mostly.

I placed the photocopy of Dad’s note on her blanket.

“Tell me about the blue ledger.”

She looked at it.

Then at me.

She did not ask where I had found it.

That told me enough.

“I burned it,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of your father going to prison.”

I sat down.

Florence’s hands trembled against the blanket.

“Elise kept a private ledger. Not just numbers. Names. Dates. Notes about who told her to move money and where. When she died, it came to me.”

“And Dad wanted it.”

“Yes.”

“So you burned evidence.”

“Yes.”

The word sat between us.

No excuse.

No softening.

I almost wished she had tried.

“Why did you think it would hurt Dad?”

“Because his signature was everywhere.”

“You just said he didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know that then.”

She looked toward the window.

“Your father was brilliant and careless. He trusted Martin with everything. He signed documents in hallways. In cars. At dinner. He used to joke that Martin knew where the bodies were buried.”

Her mouth twisted.

“That joke stopped being funny.”

The ledger made James look involved. Florence panicked. She burned it in the fireplace while Dad was out of town.

When he returned, he was furious.

Three weeks later, he died of a heart attack in his office.

“I thought I had destroyed the only thing that could prove he was innocent,” she whispered.

“Did you?”

“I don’t know.”

That answer hurt because it was real.

I told her about the text message.

Her face changed.

“Martin knows about the box?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“Neither did I.”

We looked at each other.

Then Florence reached for my wrist.

“There was one other person who knew James kept things at that bank.”

“Who?”

“Elise.”

I stared at her.

“Elise is dead.”

Florence’s grip tightened.

“Yes.”

Then she whispered, “But before she died, she told me she had made a copy.”

---

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