Chương 6
“Was it Grandpa’s house?”
“No.”
“Aunt Sarah’s?”
“No.”
“Evie’s?”
Toby hesitated.
Then nodded.
My pulse jumped.
“Evelyn’s apartment?”
“No.”
That confused me.
Evelyn and I had practically lived together for the past year, first at her apartment and then mostly at my house.
“Which Evie house?”
“Old one.”
I looked at Daniel.
He frowned.
“Arthur’s place?”
Toby said, “Pool.”
Arthur had a pool.
I had been there twice.
A large Tudor-style house in Lake Forest with an indoor pool his late wife had insisted on building.
“Did Mommy drive there?”
“Yes.”
“Was Evie there?”
Toby’s lower lip began to tremble.
I stopped.
“That’s enough.”
Daniel nodded.
I stood.
“Arthur’s house.”
“Maybe.”
“He followed Genevieve there.”
“Maybe.”
“She was trying to get something.”
“Probably.”
My phone rang.
Sarah.
I answered immediately.
“Is she awake?”
“Yes.”
Genevieve’s voice came faintly through the background.
Sarah said, “She wants to talk to you.”
“Put her on.”
There was rustling, a muttered complaint, then my daughter breathed into the phone.
“Dad?”
Her voice was thin.
I gripped the chair.
“I’m here.”
“You have Toby?”
“Yes.”
“He okay?”
“He’s with me.”
A long exhale.
“Good.”
“Genevieve, what happened at Arthur’s house?”
Silence.
Then, “You watched it.”
“I watched the garage video.”
“Did you see the contracts?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t marry her.”
“I’m not walking into that ballroom until I understand this.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Even injured, she still knew exactly where to put the knife.
“I’m not marrying her today.”
The words surprised me as they left my mouth.
Daniel stopped writing.
Genevieve said nothing.
I felt something inside me give way.
Not love.
Expectation.
The future I had pictured had been running on rails, and suddenly there were no rails.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
Her voice cracked.
“I heard.”
“What happened at Arthur’s?”
“I went there to get the originals.”
“What originals?”
“The property files.”
Daniel moved closer.
I put the call on speaker.
Genevieve continued.
“Arthur had been using Evelyn to get information about the West Harbor acquisition.”
I knew the project.
Everybody in my company did.
Seven parcels near the river, tied up in probate, environmental review, and competing bids.
We had spent eighteen months assembling the deal.
“Did we lose confidential information?”
“Yes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Evelyn give them?”
“Bid ranges.”
The answer landed like a physical blow.
Those numbers had been restricted.
Only six executives and I had access.
“Did she take them from me?”
“I think you gave them to her without knowing.”
“How?”
“Dad, you talk.”
I almost objected.
Then I remembered dinner conversations.
Phone calls in the car.
Printouts left on my kitchen counter.
Evelyn sitting across from me while I complained about competitors.
I had never handed her a file.
I had probably handed her everything else.
Genevieve coughed.
“Arthur’s company didn’t bid directly.”
Daniel asked, “Who did?”
“Kestrel Urban.”
I knew the name.
A private development partnership that had beaten us on two parcels by margins so narrow I had joked that somebody must be reading my mind.
I sat down.
“They were connected to Arthur?”
“He had a silent interest through another entity.”
Daniel wrote faster.
“Do you have proof?”
“That’s what I went to get.”
“From his house?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know it was there?”
“Evelyn told me.”
I looked at the phone.
“What?”
Genevieve gave a tired laugh that became a groan.
“She called me after the garage.”
“Why?”
“She said Arthur had lost control of the whole thing.”
“Why would she help you?”
“Ask her.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know.”
A monitor beeped on her end.
Genevieve lowered her voice.
“She said he kept paper copies because he didn’t trust digital storage.”
Arthur’s generation.
My generation.
Paper still felt safer even when it wasn’t.
“Did she tell you where?”
“Study safe.”
“And you just went there?”
“I knew the house code.”
“How?”
“She gave it to me.”
Daniel and I exchanged a look.
This changed something.
Not enough.
But something.
“What happened when you got there?”
“I parked near the side gate.”
“With Toby in the car.”
“Yes.”
The shame in her voice was immediate.
“I know.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I thought I’d be inside five minutes.”
“You took my grandson to break into a man’s house?”
“I didn’t break in.”
“That is not the part of that sentence that concerns me.”
“Dad.”
“No.”
Anger came easier than fear.
“I need you to hear this.”
“I hear it.”
“You took your son into a situation you already believed was dangerous.”
“I left him locked in the car.”
“That is not better.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Daniel touched my arm.
I pulled away.
Genevieve was silent.
Then she said, “You’re right.”
That took some of the heat out of me.
“I was scared you’d marry her before I could prove anything.”
“You could have come to me.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
The room became very quiet.
“You told me Evelyn was asking too many questions.”
“I told you she had no reason to be at company dinners.”
“That is not the same as telling me she was committing corporate espionage.”
“I didn’t know that yet.”
“So instead of coming back when you did know, you decided to investigate it yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you stopped listening.”
I looked at the carpet.
There are accusations a father can dismiss because they are unfair.
That one had evidence.
Genevieve’s voice softened.
“You wanted me to like her so badly that every concern sounded like an attack.”
I said nothing.
“You kept saying I was protecting Mom’s memory.”
I looked toward the window.
Margaret had been dead five years.
I had spent the first two of them living alone in a house too large for one person, leaving her coffee mug in the cabinet because throwing it away felt obscene.
Then Evelyn had come into my life.
She had not replaced Margaret.
May you like
But she had made silence less complete.
Maybe I had been protecting that.
