"Then we're going to stop them."
***
That afternoon, Detective Grant interviewed Malcolm.
He denied everything.
He claimed I'd approved the transactions.
He claimed Trevor had been acting on my instructions.
And when investigators questioned the forged signatures, Malcolm suggested I had become forgetful.
I heard the details from Daniel that evening.
For several minutes, I said nothing.
Then I asked, "Did he mention my age?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Yes."
I smiled bitterly.
Of course he had.
When I was thirty, men told me I was too young to run a property business.
At forty, they said I was too emotional.
At fifty, too ambitious.
At sixty, too stubborn.
Now, at seventy-one, they wanted to call me confused.
I looked at Daniel.
"Malcolm is about to discover that old age hasn't made me stupid."
My attorney smiled.
But something about that smile bothered me.
It arrived a second too late.
***
Three days later, I returned to Cedarline's headquarters.
