I should have been crying.

Instead, I was searching.

Not for proof of the affair.

They had already admitted that.

I wanted to know why Preston had looked frightened when I mentioned the ring.

At 12:17 a.m., I made one phone call.

Elias Ward answered on the second ring.

“Vivienne?”

“Elias, I need your help.”

A pause.

My father had hired Elias almost thirty years earlier.

He had protected executives, investigated threats, recovered stolen assets and, according to my mother, possessed the irritating habit of knowing when someone was lying before they finished speaking.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Preston is marrying Shelby.”

Another pause.

This one longer.

“When?”

“Six weeks.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need sympathy.”

“What do you need?”

I stared at my mother’s empty chair.

“Find out where Preston was the night my mother died.”

Elias didn’t ask why.

“Give me forty-eight hours.”

It took thirty-six.

He arrived at my house carrying a black folder.

No greeting.

No small talk.

He set it on the dining table.

“Before you open this,” he said, “understand something.”

I looked at him.

“What?”

“You may prefer the story you already have.”

I opened the folder.

The first page was a hotel receipt.

Halcyon Crown Hotel.

Presidential Suite 1704.

Check-in: 6:14 p.m.

Check-out: 1:08 a.m.

Date:

the night my mother died.

Guest: Preston Blackwell.

Payment: Preston’s corporate card.

My fingers went cold.

The next page was room service.

Champagne.

Oysters.

Truffle pasta.

Chocolate soufflé.

Dinner for two.

A bottle of wine Shelby had ordered dozens of times when we traveled together.

“What time was dinner delivered?”

“Eight twenty-six.”

“And Shelby?”

Elias slid over a still photograph.

A security camera image.

8:02 p.m.

Shelby Monroe entering the elevator.

Red coat.

Gold handbag.

No fever.

No sickbed.

Nothing except the calm expression of a woman going somewhere she intended to enjoy herself.

I stared at it.

“So while my mother was dying…”

“Yes.”

“They were here.”

“For part of the night.”

I looked up.

“Part?”

Elias removed another image.

11:09 p.m.

Hotel parking garage.

Shelby leaving alone.

Then another.

11:17.

Preston leaving through the east entrance.

“Where did they go?”

“We don’t know yet.”

My heart began pounding.

“Elias.”

“I’m working on it.”

“She died at 11:43.”

“I know.”

Something in his voice made me stop.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He leaned back.

“The hotel isn’t the part that concerns me most.”

He pulled out a final document.

A transaction authorization.

At 10:06 p.m. that evening, someone had attempted to transfer a block of shares from my mother’s private holding company into an entity called Bellweather Capital.

The transfer had failed because a secondary authorization code was missing.

“Who owns Bellweather?”

I asked.

“We’re still tracing the layers.”

“Preston?”

“Possibly.”

“How much?”

Elias looked at me.

“At the time?

Approximately forty-two million dollars.”

I stopped breathing.