Chương 11
“Did you know there were problems with the system?”
“I knew it was being replaced.”
“Did you inspect it?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Victor’s office.”
She turned. “Your name was on the company.”
“Yes.”
“Your signature was on the extension.”
“Yes.”
“And then your lawyers paid us to stop asking questions.”
“Yes.”
She picked up the cold coffee and threw it at him.
The mug missed his head and shattered against the wall. Coffee streaked the wallpaper. Mrs. Donnelly appeared in the pantry doorway, holding two jars of jam.
Lily looked from the broken mug to her mother.
“Mama?”
Elena covered her mouth.
Adrian wiped coffee from his sleeve.
Mrs. Donnelly set down the jars and moved toward the shards.
“No,” Adrian said. “Leave it.”
He looked at Elena.
“What do you want me to do?”
She laughed bitterly. “You still think this is a negotiation.”
“I’m asking.”
“I want Mateo to walk through that door.”
Adrian said nothing.
“I want Lily to remember his voice without watching videos. I want to know whether he was scared. I want to know why no one helped him. I want the police officer who ignored me to explain why your money mattered more than my husband’s body.”
Her voice broke. She hated it for breaking.
“And I want you to stop standing there as if admitting the truth is the same as paying for it.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
“It isn’t.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
He looked at the broken mug.
“I don’t know yet.”
Elena nodded slowly.
“Then stay away from my daughter until you do.”
She took Lily upstairs.
At noon, Adrian met with his attorney, Miriam Cole, in the office. Miriam was sixty-two, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by intimidation because she had represented Adrian’s father before Adrian was old enough to shave.
“You’re considering exposure,” she said after reading the fire documents.
“I’m considering options.”
“You have two. Concealment or exposure. Violence is a method, not an option.”
“Victor has the ledger.”
“Then exposure without the ledger is a story told by a man with every reason to lie.”
“Mateo’s laptop had part of it.”
“And Greco has the laptop.”
“Probably.”
Miriam removed her glasses. “Stop saying probably. Courts are full of probably. Graves too.”
Adrian looked toward the window.
“What happens if I turn over what we have?”
“To you?”
“To everyone.”
She studied him for several seconds.
“The fire investigation reopens. Federal agencies examine the shipping companies. Local prosecutors run from the case because half of them attended your family’s fundraisers. The press discovers the suppressed call. Families file new claims. Your insurers allege fraud. Your legitimate businesses freeze. Your less legitimate associates assume you are cooperating and begin protecting themselves.”
“How long before indictments?”
“Months, perhaps. Search warrants sooner.”
“And me?”
“If the extension bears your signature, negligent conduct is the least of it. If prosecutors prove you knew the suppression system was disabled to facilitate criminal activity, you face more. Then they review every business you’ve touched for twenty years.”
“They already do.”
“Not with your cooperation.”
Adrian rubbed the pale spot near his temple where Lily’s heart had been.
Miriam noticed.
“What happened to your face?”
“Paint.”
“I can see that.”
He said nothing.
She put on her glasses.
“Your father once asked me whether remorse could be used against him in court.”
“What did you say?”
“That remorse rarely survives discovery.”
A knock sounded. Marco entered.
“We found Greco’s nephew’s car. Laptop wasn’t inside.”
“Where is Greco?” Adrian asked.
“Missing since last night.”
Miriam closed the folder. “There’s your deadline.”
Marco glanced at her.
“Greco knows Victor is confined,” she continued. “He assumes Adrian will find the ledger. He will either destroy the evidence or trade it.”
“To whom?” Adrian asked.
“Federal investigators, rivals, foreign buyers, the media. Anyone who gives him a future.”
Adrian stood.
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and looked toward Adrian.
“What?”
“Victor’s gone.”
The eastern bedroom window had been unlocked from outside. One of the two guards lay unconscious in the hall. The other had disappeared. Security footage showed a housekeeping cart entering the corridor at eleven forty-eight. The person pushing it wore a staff uniform and kept his face turned away.
Mrs. Donnelly counted uniforms and found one missing.
Rosa’s.
She was in the laundry room when Marco confronted her.
“I didn’t give it to anyone,” she said.
“Who has access?”
“Staff.”
“Names.”
“All staff.”
Mrs. Donnelly looked ready to strangle the architecture.
Elena came downstairs after hearing raised voices. Lily remained in the guest suite with the cook.
“What happened?”
“Victor escaped,” Adrian said.
“Through a window?”
“Someone helped him.”
Marco’s phone vibrated. He read the message and handed it to Adrian.
A photograph showed Victor seated beside Sal Greco in the back room of an unknown restaurant. The green ledger lay on the table between them.
Beneath the image was a sentence:
MIDNIGHT. SOUTH DOCK. BRING ELENA MORALES.
Elena read it over Adrian’s arm.
“No.”
He turned the phone away.
“Why me?”
“Mateo may have hidden access instructions in something only you understand.”
“I don’t.”
“They don’t know that.”
Rosa sat down hard on a laundry basket. “This is because of my uniform?”
“No,” Marco said. “It’s because someone took it.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
“You and Lily leave the city now.”
She almost laughed at the reversal. “You told me I couldn’t.”
“That was before Victor escaped.”
“Where would we go?”
“Miriam has a house in Michigan.”
“I don’t know Miriam.”
“You know me.”
“That is not helping your argument.”
His patience thinned. “They asked for you by name.”
“And if I run, what happens to the ledger?”
“I retrieve it.”
“How?”
He did not answer.
“With guns,” Elena said.
Marco looked away.
“You’ll turn the dock into another fire, another body, another report your lawyers explain.”
Adrian’s voice hardened. “This is not your decision.”
“My husband’s evidence is on that table.”
“Your daughter is upstairs.”
May you like
The sentence stopped her.
He stepped closer.
