Chapter 7
“He tried to make it look like I quit.”
“He tried to remove you before the investigation began.”
I thought of Daniel’s smile. His hand on the back of my chair. His cheerful reminders that “team players don’t watch the clock.” His warning two weeks ago that no one lasted long at Vance if they made trouble.
My hands shook.
Liam noticed.
He folded the forged resignation and placed it back in the envelope.
“He won’t touch your career again.”
I wanted to believe him.
But I had learned young that powerful promises often collapsed on powerless people.
“Why?” I asked.
His brow furrowed.
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this?” I said. “Because of my mother? Because she saved you? Because you feel guilty?”
He did not answer immediately.
Outside, snow slid from the ledge and fell past the window in a white blur.
“At first,” he admitted. “Yes.”
At least he was honest.
“And now?”
His eyes met mine.
“Now I think my company nearly destroyed the daughter of the woman who saved my life. And I think that may not have been an accident.”
A chill went through me.
“What does that mean?”
Liam reached into his pocket and pulled out my blue paper flower.
Only now, I saw something I had never noticed.
He turned it gently, unfolding one hidden inner crease.
There, written in faded ink no bigger than a whisper, were three numbers.
I frowned.
“What is that?”
“I was hoping you knew.”
“My mother taught me to fold them when I was little. She never said anything about numbers.”
“Did she leave you anything? Journals, letters, old boxes?”
The question opened a locked room inside me.
My mother had left almost nothing. A few photographs. A chipped mug. Her winter scarf. A shoebox filled with folded blue flowers.
I went still.
Liam saw it.
May you like
“What?”
“There’s a box,” I said. “At my apartment.”
