My mother arrived at ten o'clock exactly. She wore a gray coat and carried a leather bag. She looked like a woman going to a funeral. She probably thought she was.
I let her in. She walked into my apartment. She'd never been there before, I realized; she'd never bothered to visit. She looked around at the small kitchen, the used furniture, the ocean view that wasn't as good as the one at Gull Point.
She sat on my couch without being asked. I sat in the chair across from her.
"Coffee?" I said.
"No."
"Tea?"
"Eleanor." Her voice was sharp. "Why am I here?"
I picked up the box from the floor and set it on the coffee table between us. I opened it.
"The foundation's records," I said. "Six years of missing money. All of it traced back to you."
She looked at the box. Then at me. Her face
