Chương 5
Inside was a small black object.
My garage remote.
“We found this in Ms. Cole’s car,” she said.
I looked from the remote to her.
“That was missing.”
“For how long?”
“I didn’t know it was missing.”
Ruiz pulled the chair closer.
“She says you gave it to her six months ago.”
“I would sooner give her a kidney.”
One corner of Ruiz’s mouth moved.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“People invent polished lies.”
She pointed toward the evidence bag.
“They forget to make them sound like actual relationships.”
I looked at the remote again.
“So she could have entered the garage.”
“Yes.”
“Which means she could have disabled the cameras.”
“Maybe.”
“Then she could have made it look like I left.”
“Slow down.”
“She had access.”
“Access is not proof.”
“What else did you find?”
Ruiz was silent for a second.
Then she placed another evidence bag on the tray.
Inside was a torn piece of white fabric stained with a narrow streak of blood.
“We found this behind a storage cabinet in your garage.”
I recognized the fabric immediately.
It came from one of Flynn’s old dress shirts.
The kind he used for painting or yard work.
Ruiz watched me.
“The blood belongs to Selina Cole.”
The room became very quiet.
I looked at the faint brown-red stain.
“She cut herself at my house.”
“That is one possibility.”
“And then came through the front door claiming I had done it somewhere else.”
“That is one possibility.”
My hands began trembling.
For the first time since waking, anger pushed through the numbness cleanly enough to feel almost useful.
“She planned it.”
Ruiz did not agree.
She did not need to.
Someone knocked softly on the door.
A hospital security officer appeared.
“Mrs. Vance, there’s a gentleman asking to see you.”
I expected Flynn.
It wasn’t.
A thin man in a navy suit stood behind the officer, holding a leather briefcase against his chest.
He looked vaguely familiar.
Then I recognized him.
Daniel Cho.
Flynn’s chief financial officer.
He glanced nervously toward the hallway before stepping inside.
“I’m sorry to come without calling.”
Nora, who had been half asleep in the corner chair, straightened.
Daniel looked at Detective Ruiz, then at me.
“I think I know why Selina needed access to your house.”
Ruiz stood.
Daniel swallowed.
“And I think Flynn is the reason she knew exactly when your security cameras would be offline.”
Daniel did not sit until Detective Ruiz asked him to.
Even then, he perched on the edge of the chair as though he expected somebody to drag him back to Vance Global before he finished speaking.
“Start with the cameras,” Ruiz said.
Daniel loosened his tie.
“Flynn had the home security system serviced Tuesday.”
The stabbing had happened Thursday.
“Why?” I asked.
“He told corporate security there had been intermittent failures.”
“There hadn’t.”
Daniel looked at me.
“I didn’t know that.”
Ruiz opened her notebook.
“What does corporate security have to do with Mr. Vance’s residence?”
“Executive protection.”
“Does that normally include disabling recording?”
“No.”
Daniel rubbed his thumb along the corner of his briefcase.
“The technician installed a firmware update and scheduled an automated restart for Thursday at eleven twenty.”
My mouth went dry.
“How long?”
“According to the service ticket, twenty minutes.”
“The cameras were down longer than that,” Ruiz said.
“I know.”
Daniel finally opened the briefcase.
He removed several printed pages but kept them facedown.
“The restart failed.”
“Convenient,” Nora said.
Daniel glanced at her.
“Not for Flynn.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“The system generated an error notification at eleven twenty-three.”
“To whom?”
“Flynn.”
The room went silent.
I remembered Detective Ruiz asking whether he had received an alert.
Daniel continued.
“He called corporate security at eleven twenty-six and asked them not to intervene because he was home and would handle it himself.”
My skin prickled.
“He knew the cameras were down.”
“Yes.”
“Before Selina arrived.”
“Yes.”
Ruiz stopped writing.
“Does that mean he arranged for them to stay offline?”
“No.”
Daniel answered quickly.
“I’m saying he knew.”
“Can you prove the call?”
“Our internal line records can.”
“Do you have them?”
“Not with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because they belong to the company, Detective.”
Ruiz gave him a flat look.
“You came here to disclose possible evidence in an attempted homicide investigation and suddenly discovered respect for document retention policy?”
Daniel flushed.
“I came here because I needed to tell Mabel something.”
“Then tell her.”
He looked at me.
“There’s money missing.”
Nora sat forward.
“How much?”
“Potentially eighteen million dollars.”
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the pulse monitor beside my bed.
I stared at Daniel.
“Potentially?”
“We’re still reconstructing transfers.”
“From Vance Global?”
“From three subsidiaries.”
“And Selina?”
Daniel turned over the papers.
They were transaction summaries.
I could not read the smaller figures from the bed, but I recognized the names of two holding companies.
“What does she have to do with it?”
“We found consulting payments to an LLC controlled by her.”
“How much?”
“Just under four hundred thousand over fourteen months.”
Nora swore under her breath.
I looked at Daniel.
“Flynn authorized them?”
“Yes.”
That hurt in a way I hadn’t expected.
Four hundred thousand dollars was almost meaningless against Flynn’s wealth, but the secrecy mattered.
He had once argued with me for forty minutes because I donated ten thousand dollars to a legal-aid fund without mentioning it first.
“What consulting?”
“That’s the problem.”
Daniel shifted.
“We can’t establish any legitimate work.”
Ruiz pointed at the papers.
“And the eighteen million?”
“We don’t know whether it’s connected.”
“Yet you came here.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Because yesterday somebody accessed archived financial files using Flynn’s credentials.”
“From where?”
“His home office.”
My eyes moved to Nora.
The external drive.
“What files?” I asked.
“Records from the period when Mabel still worked at Blackwell Capital.”
Nora’s expression changed.
“Why would Vance Global have those?”
May you like
“Because Blackwell advised on two acquisitions involving Vance subsidiaries.”
I knew exactly which transactions he meant.
