“How different?”
“Not dramatic. Slight variation. Middle initial missing in one place. A shortened version in another. It could be nothing.” She hesitated. “Or it could be something.”
Mo lifted his head at the subtle shift in my posture.
“So, he came to you,” I said.
“He didn’t want to overreact,” Amy replied. “He just asked me to look at the paperwork. Make sure he hadn’t misunderstood anything.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know,” she admitted.
That surprised me more than anything else.
“I don’t know if she’s intentionally deceptive,” Amy went on quietly, “or if she’s just financially reckless. I don’t know if she’s in over her head or pulling him into something she doesn’t fully understand herself.”
“And you promised him you wouldn’t say anything,” I said.
She nodded.
“I told him I’d review everything first.”
Silence settled between us for a moment.
“If I’m wrong,” she said softly, “I hurt Thomas. I damage his relationship. I make him doubt someone he cares about. If I’m right… he’s in serious trouble.”
That settled heavily between us.
Thomas might be impulsive. He might sign something too quickly. But he wasn’t reckless with his life. And if he’d tied himself to debt without understanding what was behind it, that could spiral fast.
I leaned back slightly. “What exactly are you worried about?”
“That the discrepancy isn’t a typo,” she said. “That the numbers don’t match because they’re not meant to. And that I’m looking at something I don’t fully understand yet.”
“You think she’s hiding something.”
“I think she might be,” Amy corrected carefully. “But I can’t prove it. And if I push too hard, Thomas will shut me out.”
That made more sense.
“So, you want me to…” I let the sentence hang.
“I need you to do what you do,” she said. “Watch. Listen. Ask the questions no one else thinks to ask. You move through town in ways I don’t. I’m always talking while you’re always listening.”
That was true.
“I want to know whether I’m protecting Thomas from a bad business decision… or something worse.”
I nodded slowly. “All right, we start simple.”
Amy held my gaze a second longer. “But you can’t tell anyone. Not your dad. Not Stone. Not even in passing. If this turns out to be nothing, I can’t have Thomas thinking I went behind his back.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
“You know how he is,” she added. “He’ll shut down if he thinks I’m meddling.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “But you should.”
