Arthur Vance stepped back, his eyes darting to the exit.

“Richard,” Vance muttered, “we need to leave. Now.”

“No,” my father hissed, shaking Gabriel off. “She’s bluffing. Margaret didn’t keep those.”

Eleanor opened the cover, the yellowed pages crackling in the quiet room.

“She kept everything, Richard,” Eleanor said.

“These are the original records of the shell companies you set up in ninety-eight,” she said.

She turned a page, her finger tracing a column of faded blue ink.

“And here is the name you tried so hard to erase,” she said.

“Alderman Joseph Vance,” she read aloud.

I gasped, looking at Arthur Vance.

“Your uncle,” I said to the lawyer.

Arthur Vance went pale, his mouth dropping open.

“It wasn’t just Senator Sterling,” Eleanor explained, looking at me. “Your mother knew Richard needed local protection for his real estate fraud.”

“Joseph Vance was the head of the city zoning board,” Eleanor said.

“He approved the building permits for the toxic sites Richard bought,” she added.

“He hid the environmental reports in exchange for a fifteen percent silent partnership in the holding company,” she said.