Hannah arrived an hour later with a document sleeve and a camera.

She recorded where the envelope had been found and asked each person to describe what they had seen.

Jonah expected her to announce that they had finally caught Dennis.

Instead, she said an invoice could establish a question without proving an answer.

She explained that handwriting, bank records, and business registrations would have to be checked independently.

Marta looked frustrated.

She had spent years hearing Dennis explain away shortages as mistakes made by employees.

Now she wanted one mistake to belong unmistakably to him.

Hannah said the strongest case would be the one that survived an unfriendly examination.

Jonah understood why she was careful, even though he hated how slowly justice moved.

He asked whether the papers should be mentioned at the next workers’ meeting.

Hannah said the workers could be told that additional financial records had been found, but no one should be accused beyond what the evidence supported.

That evening Jonah sat at the kitchen table with Lucy while she completed a science worksheet.

She asked why he kept checking his phone.

He told her that grown-ups sometimes discovered that a simple question had a complicated answer.

Lucy said complicated answers were usually the ones teachers wanted them to show their work for.

Jonah laughed because she was right.

He put the phone face down and helped her draw the phases of the moon.

For twenty minutes the invoices, the lawyers, and the company disappeared behind a circle of blue pencil marks.

When Lucy went to bed, Jonah found a message from Hannah.

The cleaning company had been registered to an address shared by another business connected to Dennis.

The message ended with a warning not to jump ahead of the records.

Jonah read the warning twice.

He knew exactly how badly he wanted to jump.

Chapter Seventeen: A Witness with Nothing to Gain

The next person to call was a woman named Irene Powell.

She had worked at the diner as a dishwasher before Jonah was hired.

She told Hannah that she had watched Dennis remove boxes from the office after closing one Sunday.

Irene had not contacted anyone earlier because she believed her memory would be dismissed.

She was seventy-two and had spent much of the previous year caring for her husband.

Hannah invited her to the community center for a private interview.

Jonah offered to drive her, but Irene said she preferred to arrive on her own.