Then I saw a thick, faded folder labeled *Wren – 1984*.

My breath caught in my throat.

I pulled the folder out and laid it on the desk under the green lamp.

Denise leaned over my shoulder as I opened the cover.

The first page was a partnership agreement from 1982.

It bore the signature of my mother, Lila Wren, and Nico’s father, Marcus Romano.

But beneath it was a second document, dated two weeks before my mother was arrested.

I stared at her signature on the bottom of the page.

The ink was a slightly different shade of blue than the rest of the text.

Even in the dim light, the spacing of the letters looked wrong, slightly jagged at the edges.

“Denise,” I whispered. “Look at this.”

She took a magnifying glass from her pocket and leaned closer to the paper.

“That’s a tracing,” she said.

I turned the page, my hands trembling.

Behind the forged agreement was a set of handwritten ledger sheets.

They showed the weekly profit margins of The Marigold Room from forty years ago.