Page 83

And Maggie did too.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ashby

I drag the calculator closer, key in the latest figures again, and get the same answer I got ten minutes ago. The numbers refuse to change no matter how many times I ask them, so I lean back, rub the bridge of my nose, and stare at the notebook spread across the desk.

Three pages of notes. Four hours of sleep. Too much coffee. Tom White. Maggie Sterling. Unknown.

The third column bothers me most. Unknown always does.

My pen hovers over the third column before I tap it against the paper. The missing name keeps pulling my attention back because every payment has a sender and a destination, even when one of them has worked hard to disappear. Money leaves a trail whether people mean it to or not. The trick is finding the piece they forgot to cover.

The desk sits in the back office of Briggs' shop, scarred by years of hard use, with a gouge carved into the front corner that catches my wrist if I let the notebook drift too far to the right. I shift it a few inches until it sits where I want it, laptop centered in front of me, calculator within easy reach, pen lined up beside the page.

The office smells of motor oil, coffee, printer dust, and the faint metallic bite of old tools. Out in the shop, someone drops a wrench, swears, and is immediately mocked by Fletcher. The sound rolls through the building, the familiar banter of men who insult each other because saying I trust you with my life feels too vulnerable.

My phone sits beside the notebook. No message from Laurel. I don’t check it. Checking implies impatience. I glance at it six times. Different thing.

On the screen in front of me are the clean, legal pieces I can access without stepping into territory that will make Laurel’s eyebrows do that precise, lethal thing they do.

Property records, business filings, public judgment, liens, local notices.

Nothing conclusive. Yet enough to irritate me.

Tom White doesn’t own the house he lives in. His parents do. Mick and Sophie White purchased it fourteen years ago, paid steadily, no obvious financial stress. Tom’s vehicle has one recorded loan and two late payments three years back, then nothing. He works for a supply company outside Everwood, at least on paper. No bankruptcies or public judgments. No recent criminal filings I can find.

Clean enough to be useless.

Clean often means one of two things.

A man lives simply or someone else absorbs the consequences.

For Maggie, there’s no marriage record or shared property. No stable employment trail after Lucy is born, though there are gaps that could mean cash work, informal arrangements, or staying home with a child. Two old speeding tickets. One dismissed small claims dispute over rent from before Tom’s time.

Her financial life looks thin.

Thin isn’t the same as empty. I write: Who controls cash? Then underline it once.

Briggs leans in the office doorway at 8:17, arms crossed, scowl already installed for the day. “You sleep?”

“No.”

“Good. Me neither.”

“That isn’t good.”

“Never said it was healthy.”

He looks at the notebook, then at the laptop. His gaze pauses on Tom’s name. Briggs’s relationship with problems is direct. He prefers them tangible. A locked door. A threat. A man stupid enough to step too close.

Financial records aren't his favorite battlefield.

“What did you find?” he asks.

I rub a hand across my jaw before answering. “Nothing definitive.”

“That means something?”