She Fed the Dog at the Table While His Father Ate Off the Floor—Then He Walked In and Saw Everything

"Grandpa's with me," I told Mara. "He's safe right now."

"Then why did Mom say he was gone?"

"We'll talk when you get back from the tournament. I love you."

I ended the call before Simone could reach my phone. She stared at me with a strange, flat expression.

"You always make things worse," she said.

"Where's the red folder?"

"I have no idea."

My office door, usually unlocked, had a new brass keyhole plate. The old knob lay inside a kitchen drawer. Simone claimed the handyman had fixed a broken latch. I went to the garage, got my screwdriver, and removed the new knob while she protested from the doorway.

Inside, the room looked perfect. Too perfect. My father's drafting pencils were gone from the windowsill. His framed photo with my late mother had been moved to a shelf. The bottom desk drawer, where I kept records for Mercer Restoration, stood empty.

"You cleaned out my office?"

"I organized it. You're welcome."

I looked behind the file cabinet, under the desk, inside the old steel safe. Nothing red. A faint clean rectangle on the carpet showed where my father's metal document box had stood for twenty years.

Dad appeared in the doorway, leaning hard on his walker.

"Not in the drawer," he said. "In the red folder, there was the shop deed. And the letter."

"What letter?"

He swallowed. "Your mother's."

My mother, Eleanor Mercer, had died eight years earlier. Her letters still mattered to Dad.

"Simone said I'd already given the shop away," Dad whispered. "She said I signed papers last month. I told her I hadn't. She said I wouldn't remember."

"What shop?" Simone asked, with false brightness. "Daniel, he's getting upset."

The shop was the original Mercer workshop, twelve acres of land on the edge of Pine Harbor, Ohio. My father owned it outright. I operated my restoration company from its buildings under a lease we had signed years before.

"Dad hasn't signed anything," I said.

"Then you should check what your accountant knows," Simone replied.

She smiled as if she'd made a harmless suggestion.