“MY MOTHER-IN-LAW TOLD ME TO EAT IN THE BATHROOM AT A LUXURY BANQUET—BUT WHEN MY HUSBAND’S GRANDMOTHER OPENED A BLACK FOLDER, HIS ENTIRE FAMILY WENT PALE.”

The signature looked like mine. The letters curved in the same places. Even the reckless tail of the final a was right.

But the document was dated September 18. I had spent that day in St. Louis, burying my father.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

Evelyn laid one fingertip on the page. “Not here.”

Celia's chair scraped the floor. “That's confidential foundation material.”

“Then why,” Evelyn asked, “does it authorize transferring forty-eight thousand dollars from the family education fund to a consultant owned by your brother?”

A woman in burgundy at the next place setting leaned forward. I knew her as Dr. Simone Carter, a pediatrician who volunteered at our scholarship clinic. Tonight, she looked less surprised than afraid.

Marcus whispered, “Grandma, please.”

“Did Nia sign this?” Evelyn asked him.

He made the smallest movement with his head, neither yes nor no. It was the movement of a man hoping silence could count as innocence.

Celia rose, smiling at the nearest guests. “A family paperwork issue. Nothing that concerns the donors.”

“Children waiting for tuition assistance might disagree,” Simone said.

A few heads turned toward her. Celia stopped smiling.

I stared at the document. My name appeared beneath the title Director of Community Partnerships. I had resigned from that position four months earlier after discovering that scholarship applications were being rejected without review.

“I didn't sign it,” I said.

“I believe you,” Evelyn replied.

“Then how did you get it?”

“An envelope arrived at my house yesterday. No return address. This was inside, along with twelve bank statements and a note.”

She slid a small card across the table. Four words, printed in block letters: ASK ABOUT THE BASEMENT.

The room seemed suddenly warmer. The basement of the Whitmore headquarters had been locked since the previous spring, when a flood supposedly ruined old financial records.

Marcus's phone lit up. He glanced at it and went pale.

“Who is it?” I asked.

He turned the screen face down.

Then my own phone vibrated. An unknown number had sent a photograph: the basement door, standing open, with a fresh scrape across its lock.