Potential leverage.
Married.
Ambitious.
Financial trouble.
Then Julian’s folder.
It was thinner.
Birth certificate.
Medical records.
A copy of the trust amendment I had signed two weeks after his birth.
And one handwritten page.
My mother’s handwriting.
The boy must be protected from maternal instability until Nicholas understands necessity.
Below that, a name I did not recognize.
Elias Voss.
Next to the name, a phone number.
I took a photo.
Then I heard one of the security men call from the hallway.
“Sir. You need to see this.”
He stood beside a narrow closet near the guest bedroom.
Inside was a stack of sealed cardboard boxes.
Each labeled by year.
At first, I thought they contained old household records.
Then I opened one from twenty-nine years ago.
