In the morning, Sasha was still there, curled up on the other end of the sofa. She made coffee while I took a shower. When I came out, she was sitting at my kitchen table peeling one of the oranges.
She broke it in half and put one half beside my plate.
I stared at it.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing. She had just given me something without first explaining why somebody else deserved it more.
I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened in my own family.
At eight o’clock, my phone rang. Leena.
“Are you alone?”
“Sasha’s here.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s good. There’s another record I need to discuss with you.”
I set down my coffee.
“What kind of record?”
“A merchant-account application.”
“What does that mean?”
“The business used a payment processor to accept credit card payments from customers. Before a processor approves an account like that, the business has to submit an application. That application lists the owners of the business.”
Sasha was watching my face.
“And?”
“It identifies you as an owner, Nina. Fifty percent.”
“I’m not an owner.”
“I know you’re not. We’re establishing how that representation was made.”
I pressed my hand flat against the table to keep it from shaking.
“What did they give the processor? To prove it was me?”
“Your professional details. Your employer. Your date of birth. And a copy of your passport.”
The vacation folder.
Three passports. Three itineraries. I had scanned all three passports in July so I could fill out the forms for the private museum visits and the Normandy excursion. I’d emailed the scans to Dad so he’d have a backup in case anything got lost on the trip.
Every single document. Handed over because I wanted the trip to be easy for the people I loved.
“There’s more,” Leena said.
Sasha pulled her chair closer to mine. She didn’t say anything. She just sat there, close enough that our shoulders touched.
“The account was approved about seven weeks ago,” Leena said. “We’ve requested the full records, including the identity verification history. But I have the initial summary.”
“How much money, Leena?”
She paused.
“The records currently available show roughly one hundred and seventy-six thousand euros processed through that account.”
I said the number out loud. “One hundred and seventy-six thousand.”
It sounded even less possible spoken.
“That doesn’t mean all of it is still there,” Leena said carefully. “We need the full accounting. Where it came from, where it went.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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