“Grandma?” Noah called out. “It’s us. We need to talk to you about Josh’s bank records.”
The lace curtain on the small window beside the door twitched. A thin sliver of Grandma Ruth’s face appeared in the gap, her wire-rimmed glasses catching the yellow light from the porch.
She did not turn the lock. Her fingers held the edge of the curtain tight against the wood, her eyes wide as she looked at Noah.
“Go home, boys,” she whispered through the glass. “It’s late.”
“We found the statement from twelve years ago,” Noah said, stepping closer to the window. “Just tell us what happened to the account.”
The curtain fell shut, the white lace settling back into place. Inside the house, the single lamp clicked off, leaving the front room completely dark.
The yellow porch light flickered, leaving us in the cold Indiana breeze.
We paid three dollars for a roll of quarters at the front desk of the Greenfield Library. The librarian, a woman in a thick wool cardigan, did not look up from her crossword puzzle as she pointed us toward the stairs. Down in the basement, the air was cold and smelled of damp cardboard and vinegar from the old film reels.
