Chapter 20 · A Call From the Dead

Ivy shows up at the café forty minutes late wearing sunglasses indoors.

I'm on my third espresso. My hands stopped shaking an hour ago but my mind's still looping through that ledger. Lin Archer. Eight years old. Twenty years of blood money in handwriting that got neater as the pages turned.

"You look like shit," Ivy says. She drops into the chair across from me, doesn't take off the sunglasses. "This better be worth my time."

I slide my phone across the table. Screen shows a photo I took two hours ago. Pacific Capital's founder page. Lin Archer's name in black ink.

Ivy goes still.

"Where did you get this." Not a question. Her voice drops half an octave.

"Someone left it in my apartment. Along with a note that said good luck." I lean back. "You told me you worked with him for six years. You called him Yuhan the whole time?"

She picks up the phone. Her hand's steady but I catch the way her jaw tightens. She swipes through the photos. Stops on one that shows a wire transfer from 2008. The year Lin's father supposedly cut him off.

"Jesus," she whispers.

I let her look.