Part 3
Gideon looked between them.
“What photograph?”
“The one upstairs,” Sloane said. “The frame I cut my hand on.”
He waited.
She tried to adjust her position against the cabinet. Pain moved through her side. Gideon leaned forward instinctively, and she raised the receiver between them.
“Don’t.”
His hands stopped.
Sloane closed her eyes until the room steadied.
“The photograph was of Adrian at the north dock,” she said. “The summer before he died. It had been in the sitting room since the memorial.”
Gideon’s face tightened at his son’s name.
Celia stared at the floor.
“There was a card behind it,” Sloane continued. “One line. ‘Orpheus was never closed.’ Under that was a number.”
“What number?” Gideon asked.
“The library cabinet combination.”
“You didn’t know the combination.”
“I do now.”
“That cabinet has been empty for years.”
“It wasn’t.”
Gideon looked at the scattered papers.
“What did you find?”
“A ledger. Three account summaries. A list of payments. And a sealed envelope with my name on it.”
Celia lifted her head sharply.
Gideon asked, “Where is the envelope?”
“He took it.”
“Did you open it?”
“Yes.”
“What was inside?”
Sloane looked at her mother.
Celia’s frozen expression answered a question Gideon had not yet thought to ask.
He turned toward her.
“You knew about the envelope.”
Celia said nothing.
“You put the card behind the photograph.”
Still nothing.
Sloane watched the older woman’s composure strain without breaking. Her pearls rose and fell with each breath. A loose strand of blonde-gray hair had lifted near her temple when she ran through the garden. She had not noticed it. Celia noticed everything about her appearance.
That frightened Sloane more than tears would have.
“You called me last week,” Sloane said.
Celia’s eyes moved to her.
“From a blocked number. You didn’t speak, but you played the recording.”
Gideon looked at his wife. “What recording?”
“Adrian’s voice,” Sloane said.
The broken glass in the foyer gave a tiny sound as cold air moved across it.
Gideon did not sit. “What did he say?”
“Ask her.”
Celia looked at Sloane as if the request were unfair.
Gideon crossed the small distance between them. He did not raise his voice.
“What did Adrian say?”
Celia drew one slow breath.
“He said the company had paid to make a death look accidental.”
Gideon’s expression did not change.
That was the change.
Sloane watched him become so controlled that every line in his face seemed fixed from underneath.
“Whose death?” he asked.
“The recording ended.”
“Convenient.”
“I didn’t make it.”
“Where did you get it?”
“It was delivered.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe someone sent you a recording of our dead son and you told no one?”
“I told Sloane.”
“You played part of it over a blocked call.”
“I needed her to come home.”
“You could have asked.”
“She would have refused.”
Sloane would have.
She had not spent a night beneath the mansion roof in almost three years. She visited her father’s office, met her mother in restaurants, attended public events when family absence would create more questions than presence. She had learned to leave before dark.
The house made old behavior feel current.
Gideon turned away from Celia.
“What did the envelope say?”
Sloane held the receiver against her shoulder. Her hand had begun to lose feeling beneath the bandage.
“It was a letter from Adrian.”
Her father looked toward the bookshelves, not at her.
“Handwritten?”
“Yes.”
“Did you recognize the writing?”
“Yes.”
“Could it have been copied?”
“Maybe.”
“What did it say?”
“That he had found payments made through three Mercer subsidiaries to Martin Keene.”
Gideon gave no visible reaction.
Sloane continued. “The payments started after a construction supervisor died at the North River site.”
“That was an equipment failure.”
“Adrian didn’t think so.”
“Adrian believed many things when he was unwell.”
Celia closed her eyes.
Sloane felt anger stir beneath fear.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn him into a diagnosis when he becomes inconvenient.”
“Your brother was taking medication he refused to manage properly.”
“He was also auditing the North River accounts.”
“He was not an auditor.”
“He was vice president of compliance.”
“For eleven months.”
“Long enough to find something.”
Gideon’s gaze moved to the open cabinet. “What else did the letter say?”
“That Keene was paid to pressure witnesses. That someone inside the family approved it. Adrian made two copies of the records. One was hidden here. The other went to someone he trusted.”
“Who?”
“The letter didn’t say.”
“And now the copy here is gone.”
“Yes.”
Gideon looked at the receiver. “Except whatever you managed to keep.”
Sloane’s grip tightened.
Her father saw it.
Celia did too.
“No,” Sloane said.
Gideon lowered himself again, keeping distance between them.
“You called me, not anyone else.”
“I called because you were closest.”
“That isn’t why.”
“You don’t know why.”
“You thought I could protect you.”
“I thought you would come.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
For a moment, Gideon’s anger gave way to something rawer. It vanished quickly, but Sloane had seen it.
“You were right,” he said.
“About which part?”
“I came.”
He looked toward the telephone cable.
“What did you save?”
Sloane did not answer.
Gideon glanced at her bandaged hand.
Celia stood from the chair.
“She needs to leave the house.”
“No,” Sloane said.
“We cannot sit here waiting for him to return.”
“If we go outside, we don’t know who is there.”
“The conservatory is full of people.”
“One of them may have done this.”
Celia’s eyes flicked to the broken blue glass.
Gideon went to the foyer doors and pulled one partly closed, leaving a wide gap to the garden. He tested the brass lock. It moved freely.
“Was this door open when you came in?” he asked Sloane.
“No.”
“How did you enter?”
“The west terrace.”
“That door should have been alarmed.”
“It wasn’t.”
May you like
Celia said, “The alarms were placed in event mode.”
Gideon looked back at her. “You keep saying that as though a mode changed itself.”
