Page 216 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

It was the place where love kept bringing things back.

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QUINN

THE TWELVE-DOLLAR CHOCOLATE TORTE

I was back at Payton & Wallace in conference room four, staring at a donor receipt that claimed a university had acquired three ceremonial tablets in 1948 from a man who had died in 1946.

This was not the Virelli matter.

This time, the potential clients were siblings seeking the return of objects taken from their grandparents’ home after the war. Moira had given me the intake file and told me to see what bothered me, which was the sort of instruction that could keep me happily occupied until organs failed.

“The dates don’t work,” I said.

Across the table, Helena looked up from the draft demand letter. Moira stopped clicking her pen.

I slid the receipt toward them. “The named donor died two years before the transfer. The university’s catalog repeats the same date without identifying who delivered the objects. Then the acquisition file jumps from a condolence letter to a tax acknowledgment addressed to his estate.”

Helena read the page once. “What does that suggest?”

It wasn’t a test question. That made it more frightening.

“That the university may have dealt with an executor or an intermediary and left that person out of the public provenance. Or that somebody backfilled the donor’s name because it looked cleaner than admitting they didn’t know where the tablets came from.”

“And what do you recommend?”

Six months earlier, I would have offered to make copies until someone more important decided. Now I opened the timeline I had built.

“Ask the university to freeze any sale, loan, or conservation work that could change the objects. Request the complete accession file, including board minutes and correspondence with the estate. Then interview the family before we send a demand. Their grandparents may have described markings or damage the catalog never recorded.”

Moira’s pen started moving again.

Helena studied the timeline. “Draft the preservation notice and the client interview outline. Bennett will review both.”

I kept my face professional. “Of course.”

“And Bradley?”

I looked up.

“Put your name on the drafts.”

Later that week, after I had drafted the preservation notice, revised the client interview outline, and survived Bennett’s review of both, Rafe Virelli took me on our first proper date.

He chose a restaurant where no one tried to steal a relic, no phoenixes insulted the concept of time, and the only open flame in the room belonged to tiny candles arranged in glass cups along the windows.

Naturally, I was suspicious.

“This is nice,” I said.

Rafe glanced up from the wine list. “You sound concerned.”

“I am. Nice has not been our brand.”

“Our brand?”

“Yes. So far, we’ve been more of a high-stakes cultural restitution slash legal drama.”