Anchor.
Kyle’s road name.
The man we had put in the ground two years earlier.
The man whose daughter had just entered our clubhouse wearing his jacket.
I looked at Claire.
“Why did they send this to you?”
She shook her head.
“I was hoping you could tell me.” At one o’clock that morning, I called an emergency meeting of the officers.
Nobody complained about the time.
Seven men gathered around the long wooden table in the clubhouse office.
Me.
Big Ray.
Our vice president, Leon Briggs.
Treasurer Wade Harlan.
Sergeant-at-arms Mickey Dunn.
Two senior members, Tomas Green and Eli Booker.
And one empty chair where our chapter secretary should have been sitting.
I stared at it.
“Where’s Grant?”
Wade shrugged.
“He isn’t answering.”
Grant Mercer was not related to me, despite the shared surname that sometimes confused people. He had been our chapter secretary for close to nine years.
Former insurance agent.
Neat handwriting.
Remembered birthdays.
Filed absolutely everything.
If someone needed a hospital document, a death certificate, a title transfer, a benefits claim, or help arranging a funeral, Grant took care of it.
He had also organized Kyle’s memorial.
I laid the property notice at the center of the table.
No one reached for it.
“Anybody ever heard of Anchor Holdings?”
Seven empty expressions answered me.
Wade leaned in.
“Maybe it was Kyle’s company.”
“Kyle never had a company.”
“You know that for certain?”
“I knew Kyle for nineteen years.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Fair enough.
I leaned back.
“Claire says she called seventeen times.”
Wade frowned.
“She says she mailed letters. She says somebody told her we shut down the family fund.”
Leon looked at me.
“We didn’t.”
Mickey crossed his arms.
“Who said that to her?”
“She doesn’t know.”
Wade opened his laptop.
“I’ve been sending the payments.”
The whole room went still.
I stared at him.
“What payments?”
“Claire’s.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-two hundred dollars every month.”
My chair scraped across the floor as I moved.
“For how long?”
“Since we established the fund.”
“Show me.”
He turned the laptop in my direction.
There they were.
Twenty-four transfers.
One every month.
Identical amount.
Identical receiving account.
I leaned toward the screen.
Claire had just spent eleven nights in a motel because she could not pay rent.
“Whose account is that?”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s the routing information Grant gave me.”
There it was.
Grant.
It was not evidence.
Not remotely.
But his empty chair suddenly seemed enormous.
Ray pointed at the laptop.
“Call the bank.”
“It’s one in the morning.”
“Then call them at nine.”
“I will.”
I looked at the filing cabinets lining the wall.
“Where are Kyle’s files?”
Grant was responsible for the archives.
Wade pointed at the cabinet farthest away.
“Bottom two drawers.”
They were locked.
Mickey handed me a screwdriver.
I decided not to ask where he had gotten it.
Five minutes later, the drawer was open.
Inside were files covering insurance, memorial costs, the support fund, beneficiary paperwork, and chapter correspondence.
No letters from Claire.
No returned mail.
No certified envelopes.
I opened the family-support file.
The first page was our original resolution.
Sixty-four thousand three hundred dollars collected at Kyle’s funeral.
Monthly chapter contribution: $2,200.
An education account to be created for Emory Sinclair.
Emergency expenses requiring approval from the president or vice president.
I turned through the pages.
The education account should have contained more than forty thousand dollars.
The statement showed twelve thousand.
“Wade.”
He looked at the paper.
His face changed.
“That’s impossible.”
“Where did the rest go?”
“You’re the treasurer.”
“I know what my job is, Dawson.”
“Apparently one of us doesn’t.”
Ray moved between us before either of us said something we could not take back.
Wade jabbed a finger toward the documents.
“I approve transfers. Grant reconciles the accounts and files the paperwork. That system existed before Kyle died.”
“Who has access?”
“You, me, Grant.”
“I’ve never signed into that account.”
“So in practical terms?”
Wade shut his eyes.
“Me and Grant.”
Mickey was already making a call.
Grant’s phone went straight to voicemail.
At one forty-five, Maggie walked into the office carrying a cardboard box.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Mail.”
“Whose mail?”
“Ours.”
She dropped the box onto the table.
“Found it over the kitchen office.”
Something changed in my heartbeat.
“Why was it there?”
“I have no idea.”
Claire’s handwriting covered the top envelope.
And the next one.
And the next.
Seventeen letters.
Exactly what she had told us.
Some had been opened.
Others had not.
Every one of them had been hidden inside our own clubhouse.
Ray sat down hard.
Wade whispered, “Son of a—”
I picked up the oldest letter.
It had been written ten months after Kyle died.
Dawson,
I hope I’m not bothering you. I tried calling the chapter number, but maybe it changed. Emory asks about everybody. She still sleeps with the stuffed motorcycle Ray gave her.
I’m having problems with the bank account. The monthly support stopped in April. I assume there’s an issue with the paperwork. Please call me when you can.
Claire.