I did not pull out a phone to record them, though I could have. I pulled out a single folded sheet of paper, creased soft from three days in my apron pocket while I decided whether I would ever need it. I set it flat on the mahogany table beside my ruined plate and smoothed it with one steady hand. “Marcus,” I said, and my voice did not shake, “do you remember telling your mother I was too simple to understand your family’s finances?” The laughter around the table thinned. Rosalind’s manicured hand lowered. “This is a preliminary findings summary,” I continued. “From the firm that hired me. For a client engagement I was assigned six weeks ago. The client is your company.”

Marcus’s grin froze halfway off his face. “You don’t work my accounts,” he said. “That would be a conflict.” “It would be,” I agreed, “which is exactly why I disclosed my marriage the day the file crossed my desk and requested reassignment off the direct review. What I could not un-see, Marcus, were the transfers you’d been running through your mother’s name to hide income from the business your investors think they half own.” I turned the page so the relatives nearest me could read the highlighted line. “Rosalind’s name is on eleven of them. Which means the woman who just shoved my face into a plate is a signatory on what my firm is about to flag as fraud.”