The heater groaned as I started the engine, blowing lukewarm air into the cabin.

Melanie pulled out her phone and dialed a number from memory.

“Arthur,” she said when the call connected. “I’m with Anne. Lucas’s wife. We have the files.”

There was a pause, and I could hear a faint, agitated male voice on the other end of the line.

“We’re coming to the office now,” Melanie said and hung up.

She looked at me. “He’s waiting for us. He’s got the firm’s chief legal counsel with him.”

I put the car in drive and pulled out of the motel parking lot onto the slushy Denver streets.

The drive to the downtown high-rise took twenty minutes in the heavy afternoon traffic.

The sky was a dull gray, matching the concrete buildings around us.

We parked in the underground garage and took the elevator straight to the twentieth floor.

The offices of Vance & Associates were quiet, the receptionist already gone for the weekend.

Arthur Vance met us in the glass-walled conference room.

He was a tall man in his late fifties with silver hair and a tailored navy suit that looked slightly rumpled.