Chương 10
I hated that most of all.
A clean villain would have been easier.
Marisol returned carrying a sealed paper bag, two juice boxes, and a banana.
Toby immediately announced that bananas were “too squishy.”
She accepted this without argument and produced crackers from her jacket pocket.
I looked at her.
“I have grandchildren.”
That explained everything.
While Toby ate, Daniel checked the remaining screenshots.
One showed text messages between Evelyn and Arthur from six weeks earlier.
ARTHUR: West Harbor closes next month.
EVELYN: I’m done.
ARTHUR: You don’t decide that.
EVELYN: I already did.
ARTHUR: Then tell Thomas how you met.
EVELYN: I will.
ARTHUR: Before or after he signs the revised trust?
I stopped breathing.
Daniel scrolled.
EVELYN: There is no revised trust.
ARTHUR: There will be.
EVELYN: Stay out of my marriage.
ARTHUR: It isn’t a marriage yet.
The final screenshot was from yesterday.
ARTHUR: Genevieve knows.
EVELYN: Leave her alone.
ARTHUR: Then fix it.
EVELYN: No.
ARTHUR: You started this.
EVELYN: So I’ll end it.
A knock sounded before either of us could speak.
Not hotel security this time.
Evelyn’s voice came through the door.
“Thomas.”
Daniel moved toward it.
I raised a hand.
“No.”
He stopped.
I stood.
Toby looked at me.
“Grandpa?”
“I’m right here.”
Evelyn spoke again.
“I know you told security not to let me up.”
I looked at Marisol.
She frowned.
“She didn’t come through the main elevators.”
Daniel’s entire posture changed.
“How did she get here?”
Evelyn answered from the hallway.
“Service stairs.”
Marisol reached for her radio.
Evelyn said quickly, “Arthur is in the building.”
My eyes met Daniel’s.
“You said he left,” I called through the door.
“He came back.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he just called me from Leonard’s room.”
Daniel frowned.
“Leonard is in an ambulance.”
“I know.”
Evelyn’s voice shook for the first time all day.
“He wasn’t talking about the hotel room.”
I moved closer to the door.
“What room?”
“The bridal family suite.”
Marisol’s face changed.
That suite was downstairs near the ballroom.
Evelyn continued.
“He said he left something there for me.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because he told me if I didn’t come alone, he’d send everything to the press.”
Daniel muttered, “That makes no sense.”
Evelyn heard him.
“It does if the thing he wants buried isn’t the corporate espionage.”
I put my hand on the deadbolt.
Daniel grabbed my arm.
“Thomas.”
I looked at him.
Evelyn spoke through the door, very quietly.
“There’s something else on Genevieve’s drive.”
My hand froze.
“What?”
“You haven’t opened the folder marked DAD completely.”
I looked back at the laptop.
Daniel was already moving toward it.
Inside the folder, beneath the files we had opened, was a subfolder we had missed because the window had not been expanded.
Its name was not a project code.
It was one word.
MARGARET.
I stared at the word until the letters stopped meaning anything.
Margaret had been dead five years, and there were still mornings when I opened the wrong cabinet because some part of me expected her cereal bowl to be there.
“What does my wife have to do with this?” I called through the door.
Evelyn did not answer immediately.
Daniel clicked the folder.
There were three files.
One PDF.
One photograph.
One audio recording.
The PDF was labeled KENSINGTON-VANCE 2019.
My throat tightened.
2019 was the year Margaret died.
Daniel opened it.
The document was not about my company.
It was an insurance correspondence chain.
My name appeared in the subject line.
So did Margaret’s.
Daniel leaned closer.
“What the hell?”
I read the first page twice before I understood it.
Three months before Margaret’s death, Kensington Strategic Holdings had commissioned a due diligence report on Vance Development.
That alone was not surprising.
Companies studied competitors.
What was surprising was the section discussing key-person risk.
Thomas Vance, founder and CEO.
Married to Margaret Vance.
Spouse exercises informal influence over major philanthropic and property decisions.
Potential succession disruption in event of spouse illness or death.
I stopped.
“No.”
Daniel said nothing.
I scrolled.
The report cited public records, nonprofit filings, social events, and one anonymous source described as a former Vance Development consultant.
Nothing in the document claimed anyone had harmed Margaret.
Nothing even suggested it.
But the timing was poisonous.
Arthur had been studying me before Evelyn ever entered my life.
Years before.
I opened the photograph.
It showed Arthur Kensington standing beside Leonard outside a restaurant.
A timestamp in the corner read October 2019.
Margaret had died that December.
Leonard had told me the relationship with Kensington Strategic began three years ago.
The photograph proved he had lied.
Daniel swore under his breath.
“He knew Arthur earlier.”
I nodded.
“Much earlier.”
Evelyn spoke from the hallway.
“Thomas, I need you to hear me.”
“Then talk.”
“I didn’t know about Margaret until last month.”
My hand went cold.
“What do you mean, about Margaret?”
“I found that folder in Arthur’s office.”
Daniel stopped beside me.
“What is in the recording?” he asked.
I clicked it.
Arthur’s voice filled the room.
The quality was poor, as if someone had recorded from a doorway.
“You’re becoming sentimental about the wrong things.”
Leonard answered.
“You told me nobody would get hurt.”
My stomach lurched.
Daniel reached for the laptop.
I slapped his hand away.
The recording continued.
Arthur said, “Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
Leonard’s voice shook.
“Margaret is dead.”
A silence followed.
Then Arthur said, “Margaret had cancer.”
I stopped breathing.
Margaret had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer less than two months before she died.
The disease had moved fast.
There had been no mystery.
No unexplained accident.
No hidden wound.
Nothing about her death had ever seemed suspicious.
Leonard said, “She found out because of us.”
Arthur answered, “She found documents.”
“She found documents because I left them where she could.”
“That was your mistake.”
“She confronted me.”
“And?”
“And she told Thomas.”
May you like
My hand clenched.
“No,” I whispered.
