Chapter 6 - A Name in the Ledger
Rebecca forbade me from meeting Sofia alone.
For once, I listened without arguing.
We arranged for an investigator to verify the address and asked law enforcement to assess the risk.
It led to a church outreach center across the state line.
Sofia met us in a quiet office after closing time.
Her full name was Sofia Ruiz.
Lena was her older sister.
She said Lena had survived the fire but spent months in hiding after an assault by an unknown man who demanded the warehouse documents.
Lena later entered a protected relocation program connected to another investigation.
Sofia had not seen her in person for years.
"Then how do you know she's alive?" Rebecca asked.
Sofia produced recent letters, carefully stripped of return addresses.
The final letter had been mailed just five weeks earlier.
Inside was a copy of a ledger page with my father's initials beside a payment from an offshore account.
It was dated the week after the fire.
"Lena thought your grandfather was honest," Sofia said.
"She sent him what she could."
I recognized the account code from one of the cellar ledgers.
Rebecca photographed the paper and asked Sofia to preserve the original.
Sofia then told us about the child in Grandpa's photograph.
Her name was Isabel.
She was Lena's daughter.
The photograph had been taken months after the fire, while Lena was deciding whether to testify.
"Did my father threaten Isabel?" I asked.
Sofia looked down.
"Lena believed somebody knew where she was."
I felt anger rise so fiercely I had to clasp my hands.
Rebecca quietly asked whether Sofia wanted protection and a direct introduction to investigators.
She agreed.
As we left, Sofia took my arm.
"There's something Lena asked me to tell you if you came."
I waited.
"Your grandfather did not die believing Robert was his only son."
I looked at her, certain I had misunderstood.
"What?"
"He believed Robert had been using another person's identity in the company records."
That night Rebecca and I studied the trust schedules.
A shadow partnership had received distributions without appearing on the official register.
The payee's initials were T.C.
Thomas Carter had signed none of the authorizations.
May you like
And the signature on one authorization belonged, unmistakably, to my mother.
