The only people I trust.
I looked up.
“My mother knew you?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know about Lake Mercer?”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I didn’t say your mother knew nothing. I said she did not know about Lake Mercer.”
I picked up the photograph.
“What’s the difference?”
“About twenty years.”
My heartbeat accelerated again.
Evelyn glanced at the monitor.
Liam noticed.
“So did I,” he said. “Answer carefully.”
She nodded.
“Your father began investigating unexplained transfers from several construction companies in the late nineties.”
“Whose companies?”
“Some no longer exist.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“One belonged to your grandfather.”
I stopped.
“My mother’s father?”
“No.”
The photograph trembled in my hand.
“My father’s father died before I was born.”
“Yes.”
“And he owned a hardware store.”
“Yes.”
“So what construction company?”
Evelyn folded her hands.
“Arthur Carter was not born Arthur Carter.”
