I had forgotten most of them.

Grace said she had kept the notes because difficult days made it easy to remember only complaints.

We sorted the drawer into business records to preserve and personal items to take home.

I found a photograph from our first company picnic.

Allison was in the background, smiling beside a cooler.

The image hurt, but it also showed Luis, Tina, Patrick, and people whose work remained worthy of pride.

I placed the photograph with the records rather than destroying it.

Grace asked whether I regretted starting Calder.

I said I regretted many decisions, especially those that left workers vulnerable.

I did not regret giving people meaningful work or repairing buildings that needed care.

She said that was enough reason to keep the old project files in order.

Someone might need them later for warranties, inspections, or disputes.

We labeled the final box and carried it to secure storage.

The drawer was empty when we locked the office that evening.

I had expected an empty drawer to feel like defeat.

Instead I felt grateful that the useful parts of our history had a place to go.

Chapter 22: Luis at the Workshop

I met Luis at our workshop the next morning.

The place smelled of sawdust and burnt coffee.

He was sanding a cabinet door for a dentist’s waiting room.

I told him I had learned something that might explain the missing transfers, but I could not promise when the money would be recovered.

Luis set down the sander.

He asked whether I had been stealing from him.

I said no.

He studied my face long enough to make the silence painful.

Then he said he believed me.

I told him that belief did not make his crew whole.

He said his youngest son had missed a school trip because the household had cut expenses.

I apologized.

He shook his head and told me not to apologize for what I had not done.

I wished the distinction felt as clean to me as it did to him.

Our office manager, Grace Sutton, joined us with payroll records.

Grace had begun compiling a ledger of every payment instruction changed during the past six months.

She found five subcontractors who had accepted partial payments without telling me because they feared losing work.

Two had put expenses on credit cards.

One had taken a loan from his brother.

The amounts were not enormous by Wall Street standards, but they were devastating to the people whose names occupied the rows.