"Don't sign it yet," the little girl said.

Isabella's hand stayed pressed flat against her chest, covering the pendant the way a person covers a wound.

"It was a gift," she said.

"From Charles.

He gave it to me when we first—"

"Don't." Vincent's voice was quiet.

That was worse than if he had shouted.

"Don't finish that sentence."

Charles moved toward the table.

"Vincent, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.

The recording is incomplete.

The child found a device that has been sitting in a sewing box for three years.

Whatever Sofia believed when she made that recording, she was frightened and confused and—"

"She said your name." Vincent turned to face him.

"She said your name before she said anything else."

"She was paranoid.

You know how she could get.

You told me yourself—"

"I never said that." Vincent took one step forward.

"I never said that to you.

Not once."

Charles stopped.

The room was completely still.

Dominic moved away from Charles without appearing to decide to do it.

He simply found himself standing two feet further away, closer to his cousin's side of the room.

Emily was still holding the phone.

Grace had reached her daughter now and had one hand on Emily's shoulder, but she hadn't tried to take the phone away.

She was watching Vincent the way a person watches a fire they've been tending in secret for years, not knowing whether it will finally be enough warmth or burn everything down.

"The recording," Vincent said.

"How long is it?"

Emily looked at her mother.

Grace gave the smallest nod.

Emily looked at the screen.

"Four minutes and twelve seconds.

We only heard one minute and forty seconds."

"Play the rest."

Charles's hand came up.

"I am advising you, as your attorney of eighteen years, that playing an unverified recording made by a woman who abandoned this family is not in your legal interest and—"

"You're not my attorney anymore." Vincent said it the way he might say the weather had changed.

Flat.

Final.

Already past.

"Dominic, take his phone."

Charles went very still.

"You can't—"

"Dominic."

Dominic crossed the room in four steps.

He held out his hand.

Charles looked at it for a long moment.

Then he reached into his jacket pocket and placed his phone face-down on Dominic's palm.

"This is a serious mistake," Charles said.

"Play it," Vincent said to Emily.

Emily pressed Play.

Sofia's voice came back into the room, mid-breath, as though she had only paused for a moment.

"I found the trust amendment the night of the December gala.

It was in Charles's briefcase.

I wasn't looking for it.

I was getting his reading glasses because he asked me to.

The amendment redirects the entire Moretti family continuity trust to a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands.

I photographed every page.

The photos are on this phone.

The holding company has two directors.

Charles Bellamy.

And a woman named Isabella Romano."

The pendant caught the light as Isabella's chest rose and fell.

"I tried to call you that night.

You didn't answer.

I called Dominic.

He didn't answer either.

I didn't know who else to trust.

I left the estate at 10:40 because Charles saw me with the briefcase.

He knew I had seen it.

I was frightened.

I drove to the Hargrove Inn and I called you again.

You didn't answer.

I recorded this message because I didn't know what else to do."

A pause.

"If you're hearing this and I'm not there, Vince — it's because something happened to me.

And the person who arranged it is standing in that room right now."

The recording ended.

Nobody spoke.

Then Isabella turned toward the door.

She made it two steps before Vincent said, "Dominic."

Dominic was already there.

Isabella stopped.

She turned back slowly, and for the first time since Emily had pressed Play, the composure she had worn like a second dress began to slip.

Not all at once.

Just at the edges.

A tightness around her mouth.

A brightness in her eyes that was not warmth.

"You have no proof of anything," she said.

"A three-year-old voicemail from a frightened woman who ran away.

Photographs that may or may not exist on a phone that has been sitting in a sewing box.

This is not evidence, Vincent.

This is a ghost story told by a child."

Vincent looked at her for a long moment.

"Grace," he said, without looking away from Isabella.

"How long have you had that phone?"

Grace's voice was steady.

"Since the morning after Sofia disappeared.

She left it for me.

She came to my cottage at the edge of the property at half past midnight.

She gave me the phone and told me to keep it hidden until you asked for it yourself.

She said if she sent anyone else, I shouldn't trust them.

Only if you came yourself, or if something happened in the house that made it necessary."

"Why didn't you give it to me?"

A beat.

"Because you never came yourself.

And until today, nothing had happened in the house that made it necessary."

Vincent finally looked away from Isabella.

He looked at the unsigned papers on the marble table.

The engagement agreement.

The trust transfer.

The careful precision of a surgeon preparing an incision.

He picked up the folder and held it for a moment.

Then he set it down on the far edge of the table, away from the pen.

"Where are the photographs?" he asked.

Emily turned the phone over.

"She said they're on here.

But the battery—"

"Dominic.

Charger."

"On it."

Charles Bellamy had not moved.

He stood near the center of the room with his hands at his sides, and something in his face had shifted in the last sixty seconds — not guilt, not fear exactly, but the particular expression of a man who has just watched a door he believed was locked swing open from the other side.

"I want a lawyer," he said.

Vincent looked at him.

"You are a lawyer, Charles."

"I want my own."

"I know you do." Vincent reached into his jacket and took out his own phone.

"And you'll have one.

After I make two calls."

Charles's jaw tightened.

"Who are you calling?"

Vincent was already dialing.

"The first call is to my accountant.

To freeze every account that touches the Moretti trust, effective immediately." He paused.

"The second call is to a man you've met once.

At the Riverside fundraiser in 2019.

You probably don't remember him.

He remembered you, though.

He mentioned it to me last year."

Charles said nothing.

"His name is Agent Harlan Reeves.

He works financial crjmes out of the Albany field office." Vincent raised the phone to his ear.

"He's been very patient."

The color left Charles Bellamy's face so completely and so quickly that Grace Carter, standing near the service entrance with her hand on her daughter's shoulder, looked away.

Not out of sympathy.

Out of the instinct of a woman who had learned long ago that some things, once seen, stay with you longer than you want them to.

Emily leaned close to her mother and whispered, "Is it over?"

Grace looked at Vincent standing at the far end of the ballroom, phone to his ear, the unsigned papers behind him and Isabella Romano silent and motionless in front of him.