Chương 6
He started to answer, then stopped.
Camille scrolled.
Her forehead creased.
“There is no Daniel Reese on their team page.”
Julian laughed sharply.
“Team pages aren’t comprehensive.”
“LinkedIn?”
“He keeps a low profile.”
Camille stared at him.
Darcy spoke before she could.
“How did you meet him?”
Julian did not answer.
I felt something cold move through my stomach.
“Julian.”
He looked at me.
“A conference.”
“Which conference?”
“Healthcare innovation.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
Camille’s fingers stopped on the keyboard.
“When?”
“October.”
She stared at him.
“You were not in Chicago in October.”
His head snapped toward her.
“Yes, I was.”
“No.”
“You don’t know my travel schedule.”
“I know Mom’s surgery was October twelfth.”
Eleanor looked up.
Camille continued.
“You were here that entire week.”
Julian opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
I thought of the hotel charges.
The luxury dinners.
The jeweler.
Not an affair.
Not necessarily.
A different kind of deception had been sitting in front of me the whole time.
Darcy asked very softly, “Julian, did you ever meet Daniel Reese in person?”
He stared at the table.
The answer took so long that by the time it arrived, nobody needed it.
“No.”
Camille closed her laptop halfway.
“How much money did you send him?”
Julian’s face seemed to fold inward.
Eleanor whispered his name.
He rubbed one hand over his mouth.
“Some of the startup expenses went through accounts he provided.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Camille stood.
“How do you not know?”
“Because there were multiple payments.”
Darcy’s voice became very controlled.
“Julian, stop talking for a moment.”
He looked at her.
“You need your own counsel before saying anything else about those transactions.”
For once, he did not argue.
I looked at the man I had spent seven years defending to other people and perhaps longer defending to myself.
The anger was still there.
So was the hurt.
But beneath both was something I had not expected to feel.
Fear for him.
Not fear of him.
Fear for him.
It made me furious.
It also made me feel married to him in a way I desperately did not want to feel.
Julian looked across the table at me.
“I thought I was building something.”
His voice was small.
Nobody answered.
He swallowed.
“I thought if it worked, I could pay everything back before you ever had to know.”
I felt my nails press into my palm.
“That was the plan?”
“Yes.”
“You were going to make the theft disappear by succeeding?”
He flinched.
“Don’t call it theft.”
“What would you call it?”
He looked down.
After several seconds, he said, “I don’t know anymore.”
Camille reopened the laptop.
“There’s something else.”
Julian raised his head.
She turned the screen toward us.
“I searched the email domain he used.”
Darcy moved closer.
Camille pointed to the address beneath one of Julian’s forwarded messages.
“It looks like Harbor Peak.”
Julian nodded.
“It is.”
“No.”
She zoomed in.
“One letter is different.”
Julian stared at the screen.
His face emptied.
The domain had an extra r.
Harborrpeak.com.
For several seconds, nobody made a sound.
Then Eleanor sat back and covered her mouth.
Julian kept staring.
I watched the truth reach him slowly, cruelly, without the slightest interest in preserving his dignity.
He had not merely lied to us.
Somebody had been lying to him first.
For a few seconds, Julian did not move.
Then he reached for the laptop and pulled it closer with both hands.
“No.”
Camille did not touch it.
Julian enlarged the email header until the domain filled half the screen.
“Harborrpeak.”
His voice sounded detached.
He read it again.
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s right there,” Camille said.
“I’ve emailed him for months.”
“Yes.”
“He sent documents.”
“Yes.”
“He knew everything about the fund.”
Camille’s jaw tightened.
“That doesn’t make him real.”
Julian looked at Darcy.
“There has to be another explanation.”
“There may be.”
Darcy’s tone was careful.
“But you should stop communicating with this person until you have counsel and preserve every message, attachment, payment instruction, and document exactly as it is.”
Julian’s eyes stayed on the screen.
“I talked to him yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“That the Harbor Peak commitment was still good if I cured the Ridgeway issue by Monday.”
Camille leaned back against the table.
“And you believed him.”
Julian turned on her.
“What exactly would you like me to say?”
“The truth would be a refreshing change.”
“Camille.”
“No.”
She pushed away from the table.
“I am so tired of everybody handling him gently because Dad was harder on him.”
Julian stood too.
“You don’t get to use Dad against me.”
“I’m not.”
“You always do.”
“You’re the one who keeps bringing him into every bad decision.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Please.”
Camille ignored her.
“You want to know what Dad thought of me?”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“Here we go.”
“He thought I was useful.”
“That must have been terrible.”
“He called me when equipment leases needed comparing.”
“You poor thing.”
“He called you when he wanted company.”
Julian stopped.
Camille’s voice lowered.
“He took you fishing.”
“He took you seriously.”
“They are not the same thing.”
“No.”
Julian stared at her.
“They’re not.”
The anger left Camille’s face almost at once.
She looked down at her coffee.
For a moment, they were not two adults fighting over corporate liability.
They were a brother and sister standing in the shadow of a father who had managed to wound each child differently by loving them according to his own limitations.
Eleanor rubbed her forehead.
“I should have seen this.”
Camille looked at her.
“Mom.”
“I should have.”
“You weren’t running his company.”
“I was his mother.”
Julian’s face hardened again.
“That doesn’t make you responsible for everything I do.”
“No.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“But perhaps it made me too eager to believe the version of you that required the least worry.”
He flinched.
She did not soften the sentence.
May you like
Darcy’s phone vibrated.
She checked it, typed a short reply, then looked at me.
