"All eight pieces?" I asked.
"Seven are here in the main room, and the drafting chest is in the truck. They're bringing it back inside now. But the portfolio drawer has been opened, Daniel. Several folders are missing."
I gripped the steering wheel. "Which folders?"
"Dad's original commission correspondence, the condition reports, and the notebook with his dated design notes."
For the second time that night, I felt the ground shift. Furniture could be photographed, measured, and identified. The notebook and original letters helped establish provenance: who commissioned the work, what Dad built, where it went, and how it had returned to his possession. In the wrong hands, those documents could be used to make a fraudulent sale look persuasive. Losing them frightened me almost more than losing the furniture.
"Is anything else missing?"
"We're still checking. The office computer is here, but someone disconnected the backup drive."
I took the next exit and pulled into a gas station because I didn't trust myself to keep driving while answering questions. "Don't reconnect anything yet," I told her. "Let Miriam decide what to preserve."
"Okay."
"How are you?"
My sister let out a sharp breath. "Furious. Scared. Mostly tired."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"