I touched the brittle paper.

“He signed this?” I asked.

“He did,” she said. “He wrote the policy himself.”

“He called it the efficiency directive.”

A car door slammed outside, the sound sharp in the cold night air.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel path.

“You need to hide,” Evelyn whispered, pulling me toward the hallway.

“No,” I said, my hand staying on the book. “I need this page.”

“Take the whole thing,” she said, closing the cover and shoving the heavy ledger into my arms.

The wood of the front door creaked as someone knocked.

Three slow, heavy raps.

“Evelyn?” a man’s voice called out from the porch.

It was not Daniel, but I recognized the tone.

It was Detective Miller, the retired cop Daniel kept on his personal payroll.

“Evelyn, are you awake?” Miller called again.

I slipped into the kitchen, my back pressed against the cold refrigerator.

The linoleum was icy beneath my shoes.

“Go on,” Evelyn whispered, gesturing toward the back door that led to the overgrown garden.

“I’ll talk to him.”

She smoothed her apron and walked toward the front hallway.