THE WOMAN AT TABLE SIX SAID, “GET THAT OLD MAN OUT OF HERE BEFORE MY HUSBAND ARRIVES.” I REFUSED—AND TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I WAS STANDING IN THE LOBBY WITH MY NAME TAG IN MY HAND WHEN HER HUSBAND WALKED IN AND CALLED HIM “SIR.” The first thing I noticed about the old man was his hands. They were clean, but rough.

I stopped breathing.

The air in the restaurant rushed past my ears in a dull roar.

I stared at the tiny, faded photograph tucked inside the silver lid of the pocket watch.

It was unmistakably my father. David Miller.

He was younger, his shoulders broad in his faded flannel shirt, his thick mustache curling at the ends.

But it was him.

And he was standing next to Richard Vance, a man I had only seen in newspapers and on Forbes magazine covers.

“You know him,” Thomas said.

It wasn’t a question. He was staring at my face, watching the blood drain from my cheeks.

“That’s… that’s my father,” I stammered, pointing a trembling finger at the small photo.

Thomas’s brow furrowed. “Your father?”

“David Miller. He was an ironworker.”

Thomas looked from me to the photograph, his jaw tightening.

“My father’s pocket watch,” Thomas muttered, almost to himself. “Why would my father have a picture of your dad and Richard Vance inside his watch?”

I shook my head slowly. I couldn't process it.

My father was a simple man. A man who came home covered in grease and drywall dust, who fell asleep in his armchair watching baseball.

He died of a sudden heart attack when I was twenty.

He didn’t know billionaires.

He didn’t hold bundles of dynamite.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

Thomas picked up the watch again, examining it closely.

He ran his thumb over the darkened, rust-colored stains on the silver casing. The blood.

“Arthur Bishop died twenty-five years ago on a Vance Construction site,” Thomas said, his voice eerily calm. “A structural collapse. They said the foundation was poured incorrectly. The earth gave way. My father was trapped under eighty tons of concrete.”

He looked up at me.

“Your father was an ironworker. Did he work for Vance Construction?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice barely audible. “He worked for Vance for twenty years.”

Thomas closed the watch with a sharp snap.

“Grab your coat, Rachel.”

“What?”

“You’ve been fired. I’ve just compensated you. Now, I’m hiring you.”

I blinked. “Hiring me for what?”

“To help me find out why my wife paid a man ten thousand dollars to hide a letter, and why your father is in a photograph stained with my father’s blood.”

Kevin, the manager, stepped forward, his face pale and sweating. “Mr. Bishop, please, let’s go into the office and discuss this—”

“If you speak to me again, Kevin, I will buy this restaurant tomorrow and turn it into a parking lot,” Thomas said coldly.

Kevin snapped his mouth shut and stepped back.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Thomas Bishop’s black Mercedes S-Class.

The rain was coming down in sheets, blurring the Chicago skyline into streaks of gold and gray.

I looked down at my purse.

Inside was a check for ten thousand dollars.

It was enough to pay Leo’s tuition. Enough to catch up on my mother’s medical bills. Enough to breathe for the first time in three years.

But my chest felt tight, like a heavy stone had been set on my ribs.

“Mr. Callahan said your father didn't die when the scaffolding gave way,” I said quietly, looking at the rain-streaked window. “He said he didn't die where the monument says he did.”

Thomas gripped the steering wheel. “I know.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my office,” Thomas said. “I have the original accident reports from 1998. They’ve been locked in a vault since the merger.”

We drove in silence for twenty minutes.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was a text from Leo, my son.

Mom, weird question. Did Grandpa David have a safety deposit box?

I frowned, staring at the screen.

No honey, why? I typed back.

The three little typing dots appeared.

Because some fancy lawyer just showed up at the apartment looking for you. He left a business card and a brass key. He said Grandpa left it in his will, but the rent on the box was just paid off today.

My blood ran cold.

Who paid it? I texted.

Leo’s reply came seconds later.

A guy named Arthur Bishop.

I gasped, dropping the phone onto the leather seat.

Thomas slammed on the brakes as the light turned red, whipping his head toward me.

“What is it?” he demanded.

I picked up the phone with shaking hands and showed him the screen.

Thomas read the text.

The color vanished from his face.

“My father has been dead for twenty-five years,” Thomas whispered.

“Then who just paid the rent on my father’s safety deposit box?” I asked.

Thomas stared out the windshield into the driving rain.

He threw the car into reverse, tires screeching against the wet asphalt, and spun the steering wheel violently.

“We aren’t going to my office,” Thomas said, his voice hard.

“Where are we going?”

“To that bank.”

“At this hour? It’s 8:00 PM, Thomas. It’s closed.”

Thomas reached into his console, pulling out a sleek black phone.

“I own the building,” he said flatly. “They’ll open it.”

When we arrived at the First Sterling Bank downtown, the manager was already waiting at the glass doors, looking terrified in a hastily thrown-on trench coat.

He unlocked the doors and let us into the dim, echoing lobby.

“Mr. Bishop, I apologize, the vault is on a time lock, but I bypassed the secondary gate—”

“Just take us to box 409,” Thomas interrupted.

We walked down into the basement vault. It smelled of old paper and copper.

The manager pointed to a wall of brass doors, handed Thomas a master key, and stepped out to give us privacy.

I pulled my father’s brass key from my pocket—the one Leo’s text had described, which I had grabbed from my apartment on the way.

Wait.

I paused.

“How did the lawyer give Leo the key if we came straight here?” I asked aloud, realizing the timeline didn’t make sense.

Thomas looked at me.

I reached into my pocket.

It wasn't my father's key.

It was a key I had found tucked inside the envelope Mr. Callahan had left on the table at the restaurant. I had slipped it into my apron before Kevin marched me out.

I slid it into the lock.

Thomas turned the master key.

The lock clicked.

I pulled the long metal box out and set it on the viewing table.

My hands were shaking so hard the metal rattled against the wood.

I lifted the lid.

Inside was a stack of hundred-dollar bills. A lot of them. At least fifty thousand dollars.

But that wasn't what made Thomas stop breathing.

Lying on top of the cash was a child’s drawing.

Crayon on construction paper. A drawing of a house with a crooked chimney and a big yellow sun.

And written in childish block letters at the bottom was:

FOR DADDY. LOVE, CAROLINE.