The cup looked enormous in her hands.

He showed Claire the message in the corridor.

She read it twice.

Her expression didn't change, but she took a photograph of his screen before handing the phone back.

"Do you know this number?" she said.

"No."

"I'll have it traced.

Don't respond yet." She looked at him.

"You mentioned Garrett yesterday.

The name Rosa heard."

"Several times.

Through the door.

She said Renata lowered her voice whenever she used it."

"I ran the name last night.

There's a Garrett Solis — financial consultant, works with high-net-worth individuals, has an office in the city.

He and Renata have a documented professional relationship going back four years."

Four years.

They had been married six.

"That's before us," he said.

"Yes."

He stood in the corridor for a moment.

People moved past them — lawyers, clerks, a woman with a stroller who had taken a wrong turn and looked briefly lost.

"What kind of financial consulting?" he said.

"Asset management.

Estate planning." Claire paused.

"Trust structures."

He looked at her.

"Lily's trust," he said.

When Lily was born, Daniel's father had established a substantial trust in her name.

It was structured to be managed by a designated trustee until Lily turned twenty-five.

The original trustee had been Daniel's father himself.

When his father passed, eighteen months ago, the trusteeship had transferred — at his father's written request — to Daniel.

Or so he had believed.

"Claire," he said.

"I need to see the trust documents.

The originals."

"Where are they held?"

"My father's solicitor.

A man named Hargrove, in the city.

I haven't looked at them since the transfer."

Claire was already writing the name down.

"Call Hargrove this afternoon," she said.

"Tell him you want to review the trust documents in person.

Don't explain why.

Just get in front of them."

He called Hargrove from the car.

The appointment was set for three o'clock.

He drove home first.

Mara had Lily in the kitchen, making something with flour that had spread considerably beyond the bowl.

Lily looked up when he came in.

There was a white smear on her cheek.

"We're making biscuits," Mara said.

"I can see that."

Lily held up a small misshapen round of dough.

"This one is yours," she said.

It was the most she had said to him in a single sentence since he'd been home.

"It's perfect," he said.

He sat at the kitchen table and watched them for a while.

Mara caught his eye once and raised an eyebrow.

He shook his head slightly — later.

At two-thirty he drove to Hargrove's office.

Hargrove was in his seventies, careful and deliberate in the way of someone who had spent a lifetime handling other people's most important documents.

He brought the trust file out himself and set it on the table.

Daniel opened it.

The transfer of trusteeship was on the third page.

He read it carefully.

Then he read it again.

The trustee named was not Daniel.

The document — dated eleven months ago, four months after his father's death — listed the trustee as Garrett Solis.

Daniel's signature was at the bottom of the page.

He stared at it.

"Mr.

Hargrove," he said.

"When was this amendment filed?"

Hargrove looked at the date.

"November of last year.

It came through our office by post, with the original trust documents and what appeared to be a notarized signature."

"I didn't sign this."

The room went very still.

Hargrove looked at the page.

Then at Daniel.

Then at the page again.

"You're certain," Hargrove said.

"I have never seen this document before today."

Hargrove sat back slowly.

His face had gone careful in a different way now — not the caution of routine, but the caution of a man who understood exactly what he was looking at.

"Then someone," Hargrove said quietly, "went to considerable trouble."

Daniel took out his phone and called Claire.

"I'm at Hargrove's," he said when she answered.

"The trust has been amended.

The trustee isn't me.

It's Garrett Solis.

And my signature on the document is not mine."

A pause.