I was back in Boston, and this time it was completely voluntary. We’d all left together yesterday afternoon, thanks to the company jet, then spent the rest of the day making phone calls.

Now, it was just past nine o’clock on Wednesday morning, and my brothers and I were standing outside a house in Midtown, hoping this woman really did have what she said she did.

The door opened, and an older woman with silvery-blue hair stood there. She gave us each a cool look and then stepped aside, motioning for us to come in. She might’ve been in her seventies, but she looked like she could handle herself, which was probably why she wasn’t afraid to invite four strange men into her home.

“Mrs. Hilly,” Slade said, “thank you for seeing us so quickly.”

“I’ve been waiting for fifteen years for someone strong enough to take down Andre Greene.” She pointed to an ancient-looking sofa. “Sit.”

We obeyed immediately. As I sat, I wondered if she’d been a drill sergeant in a previous life. Either that or a teacher. She had that sort of natural authority.

“Would any of you like tea?” She eyed each of us as if daring us to ask for anything else.

We all politely declined. As much as we appreciated what she was doing for us, none of us wanted to spend any longer here than we had to. We’d waited far too long to see justice done as it was.

“My late husband, Rudy, worked for GLP back when Horace Greene ran it. Believe it or not, he started in the mailroom right out of high school and worked his way up to department head. He spent eight years taking night classes to get his accounting degree, using GLP’s continuing education scholarships to pay for most of it.” Mrs. Hilly walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out what looked like a journal. “Rudy worked under Horace’s son as well, and then Andre Greene took over. Andre was nothing like his father or grandfather.”

The tone of her voice told us all which of the Greenes she’d admired, and which she hadn’t. It seemed that Andre hadn’t made many friends anywhere.

“Rudy headed the financial department,” she said, holding the book out to Jax. “Within a week of taking over, Andre fired sixteen people, and then hired three new ones. Usually, Rudy did the hiring for his department, but Andre hadn’t given him the chance. It became a habit over the years, Andre getting rid of people Rudy had hired and replacing them with workers who reported directly to Andre.”

The more I heard about this guy, the less I liked him. Even if he wasn’t responsible for the crash, I hoped we could find something to put him away.

“One evening fifteen years ago, Rudy came home upset. At first, I thought he’d gotten fired, but that wasn’t it. He said he’d started to notice that things weren’t adding up in a few places. They seemed to be simple mistakes at first. Inventory for janitors and maintenance not matching money spent. He began looking into things – doing his job, mind you – and that’s when he found bigger discrepancies.”

How could something from fifteen years ago help us with what had happened twenty-four years ago? I wanted to rush her along to get to the point, but my gut told me to be patient. We’d get there. Better to get things right than get them fast.

“Most of the companies GLP had worked with in the past to double-check findings and to do quality assurance had been changed to businesses Rudy had never heard of. There was more like that. Inspectors he didn’t know. The deeper he dug, the more he uncovered.” Mrs. Hilly sat down in the chair across from us and twisted her fingers in her lap. “He went back nearly thirty years and found lump sum payments to people and businesses that didn’t exist. He still felt too loyal to the company to go to the police right away, but he refused to look the other way too.”

She paused, lost in her thoughts of the past. Slade, as always, knew the right thing to say. “He sounds like a great man.”

She gave Slade a wobbly smile. “He was.”

I made a mental note to ask Slade how he did that. I had a feeling my relationship with Brea was going to be full of times when I stuck my foot in my mouth. It’d be nice to know how to smooth things over.

“The long and the short of it is that Rudy managed to track down a few important facts, including a memo from around twenty-five years ago that advised all staff that they weren’t allowed to speak with Chester Hunter, that he was a reporter determined to slander GLP’s good name. Since he had a name, Rudy decided to track Chester down, but he found out that he was too late. Later that night, after he told me about the accident, he said that he’d checked the dates of the memo and the accident against the financial records he’d copied. A large payment had gone out to one of those fake names, and he thought Andre might have hired someone to take care of the journalist.”

Even with what I remembered and the things my brothers had already found out, a part of me still hadn’t completely believed that the crash hadn’t been an accident. Those doubts were gone now.

“Rudy knew he’d gone as far as he could, and the police needed to take matters from there, but before he could find someone he trusted enough to give them the evidence, he had a heart attack. We’d known about his heart for years, but I still hadn’t been ready for it.” She gave us a sad smile. “He hung on long enough for me to say goodbye, and for him to tell me to hold on to everything. It would be my protection if Andre ever found out.”

“What made you decide you could trust us to do the right thing?” I asked.

“Because I’ve been watching you boys for years. I didn’t know how much you knew about what had happened, so I never approached you, but I did leave instructions with my attorney that he personally hand you the information if I died before you asked for it.”

“Thank you,” Jax said. He looked down at the journal he held and then back up at Mrs. Hilly. “We really appreciate all you’ve done, but there’s one more favor I need to ask of you.”

“Tell the police that I’m available to make a statement at any time,” she said matter-of-factly. She stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some baking to do. I take fresh bread and cookies to the elderly every Thursday morning.”

As we left the house and walked toward Jax’s car, Slade said what I knew we were all feeling.

“It’s time to hand this over.”

“I’ll call Bartholomew and have him meet us at the station,” Jax said.

This was it. Once we gave the police what we had, it would be on them to follow-up. There was always the possibility that these detectives would get the same sort of pressure as the ones had in the past, but we had something now that they didn’t then. Brothers who didn’t give a damn about making them look bad or pissing off people in high places. Brothers who had friends in all sorts of places. We would do whatever it took to get justice for our family. Even if I had to move back to Boston to do it.