He pressed the receiver to his ear, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle twitched.

“This is Graham,” he said, his voice flat.

I watched his eyes dart toward the dark window, where the rain was starting to smear the glass.

The kitchen was silent except for the low, tinny hum of a voice on the other end of the line.

“What do you mean?” Graham asked.

He listened for three seconds, his skin turning the color of wet parchment.

“That’s a board matter,” Graham said, his voice dropping an octave. “We can discuss this in the morning.”

He disconnected the call without waiting for a reply and tossed the phone onto the granite island.

It skittered across the polished stone and chipped the edge of a marble cutting board.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Nobody,” he said, though his hands were shaking so badly he had to shove them into his pockets.

“It looked like Washington,” I said. “The Securities and Exchange Commission has an office there, don’t they?”

Graham scoffed, a desperate, hollow sound that echoed in the high-ceilinged kitchen.