“Thank you,” I replied. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I could see the tears in her eyes in the light from the lanterns strung through the tree branches, but she forced a smile and thanked me.

“Could we speak for a moment in private?” I asked. The closest mourner was a few feet away, but this was not a conversation I wanted to take a chance someone would overhear.

The forced smile disappeared. “I don’t think this is the right time, Grace.”

“I wish it wasn’t, but I’m afraid it is.” The burial was scheduled for the next day. I lowered my voice and asked, “Can you tell me if Brian had an autopsy?”

Kathy took a step back. “I really don’t think that’s any of your concern.”

A woman in her early twenties whose features were similar to Kathy’s but whose age was much closer to mine appeared at Kathy’s side. “Mom, are you okay?”

“Yes,” she replied, but her eyes never left my face.

I turned to the younger woman. “I’m Grace Hughes. I knew your dad. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “How did you and my father know each other?”

The way she was looking at me had me wondering if she thought I was his mistress. Then I wondered if Kathy thought so too. It would explain why she was so hostile. “My husband used to work for your father. But that’s not why I’m here. I have some information about your father’s death I think you’ll want to hear.”

Rose Sullivan led me into the house and her mother reluctantly followed. She flicked on the lights in a room, which I guessed from the diplomas hanging on the wall behind the large wooden desk had been her father’s office. Rose sat in Brian’s desk chair, and I perched on the edge of the brown leather sofa. Rose suggested her mother sit down too, but Kathy said she preferred to stand. She stood next to the window looking out onto the front yard.

“What is this about?” Rose asked.

I wasn’t sure where to start. I felt compelled to share my suspicions, but I hadn’t planned out the conversation in my head. “Your father came to see me last Saturday. He just showed up at my house.”

“Do you know why?” Rose asked.

“He was looking for a flash drive he thought belonged to my husband.”

“Then he came to see your husband?” Rose asked, seemingly confused.

“Her husband’s dead,” Kathy said, still staring out the window. “And now mine is too.”

Rose’s eyes widened. Kathy’s accusatory tone seemed to surprise Rose as much as it did me. Did Kathy think I was somehow responsible for Brian’s death? I chalked it up to grief.

“My husband died almost two years ago. My daughter too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rose said.

I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to get sidetracked. “But the reason I’m here, the reason I wanted to speak with your mom, is about that flash drive.”

Rose looked at me expectantly. “I don’t understand. What does a flash drive have to do with anything?”

I explained to Rose that I had contacted the firm a few weeks ago. “That’s when your father told me they’d found some irregularities in my husband’s work—”

“What kind of irregularities?” Rose asked.

“I don’t know. Your father wouldn’t tell me. But when I told him I found a flash drive I thought had belonged to my husband, your father wanted it. He was quite insistent that I give it to him.”

“And did you?” she asked.

I hadn’t planned on lying to her, but with Kathy glaring at me as if I was the one who’d murdered Brian, I didn’t want to admit the truth. “I gave him a flash drive but, apparently, it wasn’t the right one because your father called me a few days later and asked me to look again. I told him the one I gave him was the only one I found, and it was after that conversation that your father showed up at my house. He wanted to come inside and look for the flash drive himself. He seemed very agitated.”

“Agitated?”

“Stressed. Very stressed. So I let him search.”

“And did he find what he was looking for?”

“I don’t know. He looked through some boxes my husband had stored in the closet and there was a flash drive in there, but I don’t know what was on it. I offered to let him use my computer to check, but he just took the flash drive with him and left.”

Rose turned to Kathy. “Mom, did you know anything about this?”

“No,” she replied. “Your father’s business was your father’s business. I didn’t interfere.”

Rose turned back to me. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling us this?”

“Because I don’t think your father’s death was an accident.”

Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes widened. “What do you think happened to him? You think someone pushed him overboard to get a flash drive?” Rose’s tone told me how ludicrous she thought my suggestion was.

“For what was on the flash drive. Or, more likely, what wasn’t on the flash drive.”

Rose glanced over at Kathy. “Mom, are you listening to this?”

Kathy turned away from the window and folded her arms across her chest. “I think you need to leave.”

I stood up and directed my words at Kathy. “The reason I’m here is because I think whoever killed Jonah killed Brian too. If we went to the police together—”

“The man who murdered your husband is dead,” Kathy said. “I don’t know why—”

“Wait,” Rose said and stood up too. “Your husband was murdered?”

“Yes.” She’d probably assumed they died in a car accident. Most people did.

“But the man who did it is dead,” Kathy said. “So he couldn’t have killed Brian.”

“The man who pulled the trigger is dead,” I said. “But whoever ordered him to do it is still alive.”

Rose shifted her gaze from me to Kathy. Her voice cracked when she spoke. “Mom, was Daddy involved in something he shouldn’t have been?”

Kathy crossed the room and held her daughter’s face in her hands. “Of course not, darling. Your father was a good man.”

Then Kathy wiped away Rose’s tears with her thumbs and turned back to me. “I don’t know if you’re having some sort of mental breakdown or you’re just delusional, but I want no part of it. Brian fell off his boat and drowned. You need to leave this house now and never contact us again.”

I stared into Kathy’s steely blue eyes. She knows.