Chương 12
“Not everything is governance, Claire.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
I stared at him.
Then I moved aside.
“Fine.”
He walked toward the doors.
I followed.
He turned.
“What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“No.”
“I’m the person who just told you not to interfere.”
“Exactly.”
“You clearly need supervision.”
For the first time all day, something almost human crossed his face.
“Your mother is going to love this.”
“She’ll put it in my permanent record.”
We drove separately because neither of us trusted what the afternoon might become.
Martin lived in a condo building in Streeterville with a lobby that always smelled faintly of lemon polish and expensive carpeting.
His doorman recognized Adrian immediately.
“Mr. Whitmore.”
“Is Martin upstairs?”
The doorman’s smile weakened.
“I’m not sure I can disclose whether a resident is home.”
“Call him.”
“I can do that.”
He picked up the desk phone.
No answer.
Adrian shifted beside me.
“When did you last see him?”
The doorman hesitated.
“I really shouldn’t—”
“I’m his business partner.”
“I understand.”
“And friend.”
“I understand that too.”
The man looked genuinely uncomfortable.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Mr. Shaw left around one.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Driving?”
“He took a cab.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Did he have luggage?”
The doorman thought.
“A gym bag.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Was he upset?”
The man gave Adrian a tired look.
“I opened a door for him.”
That ended the interrogation more effectively than anything I could have said.
Outside, Adrian stood on the sidewalk staring at traffic.
“What are you thinking?”
“He has a cabin.”
“Where?”
“Wisconsin.”
“You think he went there?”
“He goes there when he wants to disappear.”
“You’ve been?”
“Hundreds of times.”
“Then call counsel.”
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“If Martin is involved in this, I need to hear it from him.”
“That is exactly why you should not go.”
He turned toward me.
“You think I’m going to warn him?”
“I think you’re emotional.”
“So are you.”
“Yes.”
The admission made him blink.
“I’m terrified,” I said.
“Of what?”
“That this is bigger than any of us understand.”
He looked down the street.
Traffic crawled toward Michigan Avenue.
A cyclist shouted at a delivery van blocking the bike lane.
Someone nearby was playing a trumpet badly enough that the same six notes seemed to repeat forever.
“If he took money,” Adrian said, “there has to be a reason.”
“That is a dangerous sentence.”
“I didn’t say a good reason.”
“You’re already looking for one.”
“Because I know him.”
“You knew Vanessa too.”
His face tightened.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Martin built this with me.”
I stared at him.
The words carried years I had never been invited fully inside.
“Then maybe you should ask yourself why a man who built it with you would take money from it.”
Adrian looked away.
I called Margaret.
She answered with irritation already prepared.
“Tell me you are not with Adrian.”
“I’m with Adrian.”
“Of course you are.”
“We think Martin may have gone to his cabin in Wisconsin.”
Silence.
“How do you know?”
“His doorman said he left with a gym bag, and Adrian says he disappears there sometimes.”
“Do not go there.”
Adrian heard through the phone.
He shook his head.
Margaret continued.
“Send me the address.”
“I don’t have it.”
“I do,” Adrian said.
Margaret heard him.
“Mr. Whitmore, if you drive to that cabin, you are placing yourself in an unnecessarily complicated position.”
“I’m already in an unnecessarily complicated position.”
“You have no idea how much worse it can become.”
“I’m going.”
“Then at minimum, do not confront him about evidence he has not been formally presented with.”
Adrian said nothing.
“That silence does not reassure me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
I closed my eyes.
Margaret sighed.
“Claire, send me the address before you leave.”
“And keep your phone on.”
“Yes.”
“Do not remove documents, devices, records, or anything else from the property.”
“We’re not idiots.”
“I am professionally required to assume everyone becomes an idiot under stress.”
She hung up.
The cabin was two hours north if traffic behaved.
Traffic did not.
By the time we crossed into Wisconsin, daylight had begun thinning.
Adrian drove ahead of me in his Range Rover.
Vanessa’s seat was empty.
I hated that I noticed.
Martin’s cabin sat near a lake outside Lake Geneva, down a narrow road bordered by trees beginning to turn.
I had been there once, fifteen years earlier, for a company weekend when Noah dropped a fishing rod into the water and Martin dove in fully dressed to retrieve it.
The cabin was larger than I remembered.
One light burned inside.
Adrian parked first.
I got out before he reached the porch.
“Wait.”
He ignored me and knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
“Martin.”
Nothing.
Adrian tried the handle.
Locked.
“Do not break anything.”
He gave me a look.
“I wasn’t going to.”
A sound came from behind the cabin.
Metal striking wood.
We both stopped.
Then Adrian walked around the side.
I followed.
Martin was sitting on the back steps beside a split log, holding an ax loosely between his knees.
He wore jeans and an old Northwestern sweatshirt.
A half-finished pile of firewood sat beside him.
He looked at us without surprise.
That was the worst part.
“You found the cabin,” he said.
Adrian stopped several feet away.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
Martin looked down at the ax.
“Didn’t feel like it.”
“They’re looking for you.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
Martin shrugged.
“Needed air.”
Adrian stared at him.
I watched Martin’s hands.
They were steady.
“Wexler Holdings,” Adrian said.
Martin’s eyes lifted.
I closed mine briefly.
So much for not confronting him.
“What about it?” Martin asked.
Adrian’s face changed.
Not because Martin denied anything.
Because he did not.
“You own it.”
“Yes.”
Adrian took one step forward.
“Northline sent money to it.”
“Yes.”
May you like
The woods around us seemed unnaturally quiet.
Even the lake beyond the trees looked still.
