“Is not public knowledge.”
“I know,” the girl said.
“Then how—”
“Because he told my mother,” she said.
“And my mother told me.”
She looked at him.
At the oldest son.
At the man who had run the family.
For twenty years.
Without knowing.
“There is one more thing,” she said.
She reached into her dress one more time.
A photograph.
Old.
Black and white.
The founder.
Young.
Standing beside a woman.
His hand on her shoulder.
Both of them smiling.
And between them.
A baby.
Wrapped in a blanket.
With the family seal.
Pinned to the corner.
William took the photograph.
Looked at it for a long time.
Then passed it to his brother.
Who passed it to the next.
Around the table.
Until every face had seen it.
And every face had gone still.
Because the woman in the photograph.
Was not the founder’s wife.
But the baby.
The baby had his eyes.
Exactly.
Part 3
The lawyers arrived the next morning.
Four of them.
The family’s legal team.
Who had managed the estate for thirty years.
