Chương 6
Daniela looked toward the living room.
Iris had fallen asleep on the couch with one foot hanging over the edge. Bramble rested beneath her arm, newly stuffed and badly lopsided because Daniela’s attention had wandered during the repair.
“She is going to hear about this forever.”
“Possibly.”
“If I take the money, people will think we stole it.”
“Some will.”
“If I do not, people will still think we stole it.”
“Some will.”
Daniela laughed bitterly. “You are very comforting.”
“I charge extra for comfort.”
A knock sounded.
Gabriel stood in the hallway carrying groceries and a cardboard box.
Nia did not move aside.
“You were not invited.”
“I brought Iris’s clothes from the cottage.”
“How did you access it?”
“I am a trustee.”
“That title is becoming less impressive by the hour.”
He handed Nia a document.
“The estate management company withdrew the notice to vacate.”
Daniela took it.
The cottage remained unavailable because police had sealed one room while reviewing the theft and document allegations. Housing restored on paper did not give her a safe place to sleep.
“You did this?” she asked.
“I called the trust attorney.”
“What did it cost you?”
“My sister requested an emergency board vote to suspend me from the foundation.”
Nia took the grocery bags.
“Come in before the hardware-store owner assumes we are dealing power tools in the hallway.”
Gabriel entered.
He had not shaved. The black suit from the gala was gone, replaced by dark jeans and a gray sweater. Without staff, drivers, or chandeliers around him, he looked less like a man who owned buildings and more like someone who had forgotten where he had put his keys.
Iris woke when he set down the cardboard box.
“Did you bring my pajamas with the penguins?”
“Yes.”
“Both pieces?”
He looked inside.
“Apparently not.”
“You forgot the pants.”
“I was supervised by two police officers and an estate attorney.”
“That’s a lot of people to forget pants.”
“It is.”
She rolled over and went back to sleep.
Gabriel looked at the settlement on the table.
“Do not sign it.”
Daniela’s anger came quickly.
“You lost a board seat. I lost everything I use before breakfast.”
“I know.”
“No, you know as a list.”
He sat opposite her.
“My code opened the safe. My signature appears on the transfers you photographed. If this becomes a criminal investigation, I may be implicated.”
Nia’s eyes narrowed. “Why does your signature appear?”
“Sabine presented the transfers as temporary advances between family entities. I approved them.”
“Did you read the underlying invoices?”
“No.”
Daniela stared at him.
“You signed without reading.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Over three years? Approximately $3.2 million.”
She leaned back.
Gabriel did not look away.
“I was rebuilding the hotel group after Sophie died. Sabine said the foundation had cash reserves and Mercer Hall needed restoration before the centennial campaign. I treated it as internal accounting.”
“It was money for housing programs.”
“I know that now.”
“You could have known then.”
“Yes.”
His agreement did not make the confession noble. It made it worse because he sounded as though he had practiced accepting blame without yet suffering its full weight.
Daniela tapped the settlement.
“Would you refuse this money if Iris were yours?”
“I cannot answer that.”
“Try.”
He looked at the sleeping child.
“No,” he said finally. “I might take it.”
The honesty unsettled her.
“Then why tell me not to?”
“Because my sister needs your silence before the audit committee meets next week.”
“That is about your fight with her.”
“Yes.”
“And Iris?”
“Yes.”
“You do not get to combine them.”
“I know.”
“You say that often.”
Gabriel rubbed his wedding ring with his thumb.
“Sophie used to say I understood moral problems only after they became expensive.”
“What did you say?”
“That she was being unfair.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
Nia opened one grocery bag and removed bread, apples, soup, and a box of cereal Iris disliked.
“Did you choose these?”
“Yes.”
“You bought unsweetened bran flakes for a six-year-old.”
“I panicked.”
“That explains your investment strategy too.”
A laugh escaped Daniela.
She covered it with one hand.
Gabriel smiled, but only briefly.
He placed the cardboard box beside the couch.
“Desmond copied the security files before Sabine’s attorney took control of the system.”
“Is that legal?” Daniela asked.
“He was authorized to preserve incident footage.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Nia held out her hand.
Gabriel gave her a flash drive.
“The ballroom, west corridor, family elevator, service hall, and scullery entrance. No camera inside the scullery.”
“Anything useful?”
“The service-hall recording shows Celia carrying Bramble at eight forty-six. Sabine enters the same corridor thirty seconds later holding something red. They leave separately.”
“That proves opportunity,” Nia said. “Not planting.”
“The family elevator shows Sabine leaving her suite at eight thirty-seven. The locket was last photographed in the safe during the insurance inspection that morning.”
“Still not enough.”
“No.”
He looked at Daniela.
“But it is not nothing.”
The settlement remained on the table overnight.
Daniela woke at four and found Iris sitting beside it in the dark.
“What are you doing?”
“Reading.”
“You cannot read those words.”
“I can read my name.”
Daniela switched on the lamp.
Iris pointed to the agreement.
“Why is Bramble called property?”
“Lawyers call things strange names.”
“Am I property?”
“No.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Then why does the gold lady tell us where to live?”
Daniela sat beside her.
“She owns the cottage.”
“Do we own here?”
“No.”
“Do we own Grandma’s?”
“Grandma rents.”
“What do we own?”
Daniela looked around the borrowed apartment.
“Our clothes. Bramble. My car, mostly.”
“The bank owns some?”
“Yes.”
Iris nodded as though this confirmed a theory.
“Mr. Gabriel owns too much.”
“That is true.”
“Can he give us a house?”
“He could.”
“Why don’t we ask?”
“Because then he might think he gets to decide things for us.”
“He already decides things.”
May you like
Daniela looked at her daughter.
Children found the weak place in every adult explanation and pressed it without mercy.
