Chương 9
“Yes.”
Someone knocked again.
The security guard’s voice came through the door.
“Mr. Vance, Ms. Ruiz is here.”
Daniel opened it.
The hotel manager stepped inside.
She was perhaps forty-five, wearing a navy suit and white sneakers, apparently having decided somewhere during the emergency that comfort mattered more than dress code.
Her badge read MARISOL RUIZ.
She looked at Toby before she looked at either of us.
“Would you like me to arrange a private room next door for him?”
“I’m staying with Grandpa,” Toby said.
Marisol nodded as if he were a difficult executive.
“Understood.”
That earned the smallest smile from Daniel.
“We need food,” I said.
“For him.”
“I can do that.”
“No staff entering.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“All right.”
“Sealed food.”
Daniel looked at me.
“You’re getting paranoid.”
“Am I?”
He did not answer.
Marisol said, “I’ll bring it myself.”
She left.
I turned back to the laptop.
There were still files we had not opened.
Two audio recordings.
Bank statements.
Screenshots.
I clicked the first audio file.
Genevieve’s voice came through faintly.
The recording sounded like it had been made from inside a pocket.
A door closed.
Then Evelyn spoke.
“You cannot keep asking me for this.”
Arthur answered.
“You agreed.”
“I agreed to information.”
“You agreed to results.”
“I’m marrying him.”
“That was your decision.”
“You encouraged it.”
“I encouraged stability.”
Daniel mouthed, Jesus.
Evelyn’s voice sharpened.
“You offered the bonus.”
“And you accepted it.”
Silence.
Then she said, “I gave you everything I’m going to give you.”
Arthur laughed once.
“You’ve said that before.”
“I mean it.”
“Then return the money.”
“I can.”
“Five hundred thousand?”
“I can.”
“From where?”
“My own account.”
“That account exists because of me.”
“You don’t own everything I have.”
“I own the debt behind it.”
Daniel paused the recording.
“Debt?”
I clicked the bank statements.
Most belonged to Evelyn.
The deposits from Kensington Strategic matched the contract.
But so did repeated outgoing transfers to a rehabilitation facility in Arizona.
The beneficiary name was Claire Kensington.
“Her sister,” I said.
“I thought Claire lived in Phoenix.”
Daniel scrolled.
“Maybe she does.”
The transfers were large.
Twenty-two thousand.
Eighteen thousand.
Thirty-one thousand.
Another for forty-six.
Over two years, Evelyn had sent more than three hundred thousand dollars to treatment centers, private clinicians, and something labeled structured housing.
I remembered Claire at Christmas.
Thin.
Funny.
Never drinking.
She had spent half the evening doing a puzzle with Toby and left early because crowded rooms made her anxious.
Evelyn had told me she was recovering from “a rough few years.”
She had not said who paid for it.
Daniel resumed the recording.
Arthur’s voice came through.
“Claire relapses, you come to me.”
“She’s sick.”
“She’s expensive.”
“You told me you’d help.”
“I did help.”
“You made me earn it.”
“That is called adulthood.”
Evelyn made a sound I had never heard from her.
Not crying.
Something lower.
Exhausted disgust.
“You used her.”
“I gave you an opportunity.”
“You sent me after a lonely widower.”
My chest tightened.
Arthur said, “And now you love him.”
There was a long silence.
Then Evelyn said, “Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Arthur continued.
“That complicates things.”
“It ends them.”
“No.”
“It ends them for me.”
“What do you imagine happens when Thomas learns how you met?”
“I’ll tell him.”
“When?”
“After the wedding.”
Arthur laughed.
Daniel stopped the recording again.
I stood.
“She was going to tell me afterward.”
“Maybe.”
“She said it.”
“She also knew she was being recorded?”
“No indication.”
“That we know of.”
I turned on him.
“Do you have to challenge every damn thing?”
“Yes.”
“For once, can you just let something mean what it means?”
“I’m trying to keep you from deciding what it means before we have all of it.”
I wanted to hit him.
Not because he was wrong.
Because he was doing exactly what I had paid him and trusted him to do for decades.
He refused to let my feelings become evidence.
Toby looked up from the television.
“You mad?”
I sat back down.
“A little.”
“At Uncle Dan?”
Daniel said, “Apparently.”
Toby considered him.
“You say sorry.”
I rubbed both hands over my face.
“Sorry.”
Daniel nodded.
“Accepted under protest.”
Toby returned to the cartoon.
The second recording was shorter.
Evelyn and Genevieve.
No Arthur.
Genevieve’s voice sounded close and sharp.
“You expect me to believe you suddenly grew a conscience?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I expect you to verify what I’m giving you.”
“Why help me?”
“Because your father won’t believe me.”
“He shouldn’t.”
“I know.”
That answer silenced Genevieve.
Evelyn continued.
“Arthur used Kestrel to profit from Thomas’s bids.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always say you don’t know when the answer makes you look worse.”
“Probably.”
Another silence.
Then Genevieve asked, “Do you love him?”
Evelyn did not answer immediately.
“Yes.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that too.”
“Because there isn’t a better answer.”
I stared at the laptop.
It was the same imperfect answer she had given me.
No speech.
No defense.
Just an admission that sounded painfully human.
Genevieve said, “If you love him, call off the wedding.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
My body went still.
Genevieve laughed bitterly.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I told him we should postpone.”
I remembered.
Evelyn had suggested moving the wedding to spring.
She said the planning had become ridiculous.
I had refused.
I told her postponement would only give Genevieve more time to interfere.
The memory tasted foul now.
On the recording, Genevieve said, “That isn’t calling it off.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of Dad?”
“Of losing him before I could tell him myself.”
“That’s selfish.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, you really are in love with him.”
Evelyn laughed once, without humor.
“I’m afraid so.”
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Daniel said, “There are two separate questions.”
I looked at him.
“Did Evelyn enter your life fraudulently?”
“Yes.”
“And did she later try to stop Arthur?”
May you like
“Maybe.”
“Both can be true.”
