I found the loose plank near the baseboard and pried it up with my fingernails.

Beneath it lay a small, black steel lockbox.

I lifted it out. It was heavy, cold, and coated in a layer of gray dust.

The box had a mechanical five-digit combination lock.

I stared at the numbers.

For years, I had told the investigators, the lawyers, and myself that I couldn’t remember.

But looking at the box now, in the quiet of my grandfather’s cabin, the fog cleared.

The code wasn’t a random sequence of numbers.

It was the date I passed my CPA exam, the day I believed my career in forensic accounting was truly beginning.

My fingers went to the dials.

I turned them: zero, eight, one, four, seven.

I pressed the silver latch.

The lock clicked open.

I lifted the lid, and inside lay a thick, leather-bound notebook and an encrypted flash drive.

I opened the notebook to the first page.

Columns of figures, written in my own neat handwriting, detailed the transactions of Apex Development.

Beside each entry were the names of the dummy corporations Ethan had set up.