I tossed it into the metal wastebasket.

“We are stripping this office,” I said to Marcus, who had followed me inside.

“Every piece of furniture he chose is going.”

“And your office?” Marcus asked.

“This won’t be an office for an executive director anymore,” I said.

“We are turning this room into the central archive and public reading room.”

“Where will the new director sit?” Marcus asked.

“Downstairs, in a glass office next to the reception desk,” I said.

“They should be visible to everyone who walks through the front door.”

Marcus smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Your mother would have approved of that layout,” he said.

***

The following weeks were filled with the quiet hum of construction and legal filings.

The restoration crew scrubbed the soot from the brickwork and replaced the water-damaged drywall.

I spent my mornings at the police precinct and my afternoons in Marcus’s office downtown.

The district attorney filed multiple counts of grand larceny and document destruction against Grant.

Vanessa Hart was charged as an accomplice, her career in public relations effectively ended.