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“Send him in. And come sit in, if you would, and take notes. We’ll probably come away from the meeting with action items.”

She nodded and stepped back out. A moment later, she returned with a distinguished silver-haired man behind her and took the chair by the window, her legal pad on her knee.

Daniel Riggs was somewhere in his sixties, trim, with his hair cut short. He wore a gray overcoat he hadn’t bothered to take off. His eyes were red behind wire frames, but he wasn’t falling apart. He looked composed, though it seemed to take some effort.

Sam came around the desk and offered his hand.

“Mr. Riggs. I’m Sam Winslow. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Daniel.” His grip was firm and brief. “And thank you. I won’t take much of your time. From what Leigh always said, this is a busy office.”

“Please, sit. This is Allison Crenshaw. She’s working with me.”

Daniel nodded at Alli, who offered her quiet condolences, and lowered himself into the chair across the desk. Sam didn’t go back behind it. He took the chair beside the man instead.

“I want you to know the firm will cover the funeral,” Sam said. “Whatever you want, wherever you want it. She gave this place thirty years. It’s the least we can do.”

Something shifted in Daniel’s expression. Not surprise, but rather a sad amusement.

“That’s a kind offer, and I’ll tell her niece you made it. But Leigh took care of it herself. Years ago. Prepaid the whole thing, the plot and all.” He shook his head slowly. “That was Leigh. She didn’t want anyone else to have to deal with it, not even at the end. She planned every last detail so no one else would have to.”

“That sounds exactly like her. Can I ask how the two of you met?” Sam asked, hoping the question wasn’t too personal. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t know there was anyone. She kept that to herself.”

“Oh, she did that.” A small, sad smile. “It was a coffee shop, of all the ordinary places. She was back east visiting family, and we reached for the same door at the same time and got in each other’s way. I bought her a coffee to apologize for nearly knocking her over. We talked until they closed. It was long distance for a good while. Boston and here. Flights and phone calls. We were too old to think anything would come of it, and it did anyway.”

“When did that change?”

“After her sister passed. Cancer.” He said the word plainly, the way people do when they have already said it a hundred times. “It changed her. Deeply. She told me life was too short to keep loving someone from a different time zone. So we made a plan.”

He stopped for a long moment, clearing his throat a few times.

“We bought a condo in Florida. Near the water. She was going to give her notice at the end of the month.” He looked up at Sam, and there was a spark of emotion in his eyes. “She was retiring, Mr. Winslow. We both were. We were going to travel. Sleep in. Have whole days where nothing was scheduled, and nothing needed fixing. She wanted that so badly. After everything with her sister, she said she was done waiting to live.”

The news caught Sam off guard. He hadn’t expected this.

She had been weeks from leaving, and none of them had known.

“I had no idea,” he said. “She never said a word.”

“She hadn’t told anyone yet. She was going to do it at the end of the month.” Daniel’s mouth tightened. “To be truthful, she was dreading it. She didn’t think your father would take it well. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation at all.”

“He wouldn’t have taken it well,” Sam admitted. “He doesn’t handle it when people leave him. He never has. She was right to dread it.”

Daniel pressed his palms to his knees and stood. “I should let you get back to it. I just wanted to come in person. Leigh loved working here, you know. I want you to know that she truly did. Whatever else she felt about your father, and she felt plenty, she was proud of this place. She really did love it.”

Sam stood with him. There was a thing he’d meant to ask, and he almost let it go, and then he didn’t.

“Before you go. Would you look at something for me?”

He went to the desk and drew out the slim manila folder Alli had pulled from Leigh’s drawer that morning. Vendor contracts. A run of invoices. A few signature pages from companies he didn’t recognize. He hadn’t had time to make sense of them. He only knew they had been in Leigh’s personal drawer and that it didn’t sit right with him.

“These were in her desk,” Sam said, holding out the folder. “Did she ever mention anything like this? Any worry about the books, a vendor, anything that wasn’t adding up for her?”

Daniel glanced at the top page and shook his head.

“No. I’m sorry. We tried not to talk about work when we were together. There was so little time; we didn’t want to spend it on spreadsheets.” He gave a small shrug. “If it was about work, she left it at work.”

“Fair enough.” Sam closed the folder, but he didn’t put it away.