“Where did she move this one?”
He set the box down hard enough to shift the papers inside. “I don’t know.”
The bookkeeper looked at the closed cabinet behind him. Its brass label read PROPERTY SALES, and the key was still in the lock.
“Is the file in there?” I asked.
Caleb removed the key and put it in his pocket.
“You should speak to Mother about her decisions.”
The bookkeeper gathered her things without looking at either of us. Before she left, she placed a small white slip of paper on the desk. It was a file transfer note, dated Thursday, with Lorraine’s initials at the bottom.
The destination line had been left blank.
I picked it up.
Caleb held out his hand. “That belongs to the office.”
I folded the slip and put it in my pocket.
At 10:20 the next morning, Lorraine and I sat across from a lawyer in a small office in a strip mall. The waiting room had a vending machine that accepted dollar bills but rejected the five dollar bill I had tried to use for coffee. Lorraine had laughed at the machine and handed me three dollars and twenty-five cents in coins.
