“They’ve been driving past twice a day since your mother’s relapse,” she said, leaning against the door to catch her breath.

“Who are they?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Carter’s security team,” she said, squinting through a narrow peephole. “The ones who clean up their mess.”

She turned and motioned for me to follow her down a narrow corridor.

Her name was Martha, and she had been the head admissions clerk at Westside Clinic in 1984.

We entered a small kitchen where a single overhead bulb flickered, casting long shadows across the yellowing linoleum.

On the kitchen table sat a dusty cardboard box tied with frayed twine.

“I kept these because I knew they would try to say it was my fault,” Martha said, her fingers trembling as she worked the knot.

“Say what was your fault?” I asked, pulling out a chair.

She untied the twine and pulled back the cardboard flaps.

Inside were thick, ledger-style notebooks and stacks of carbon-copy intake forms.

“The state grants,” Martha said, pulling a heavy ledger toward her. “The Carter family didn’t build their first high-rise with honest money.”