Chương 3
Nathan stared at him.
Eli continued.
“Ray said my mom found something when she was cleaning Daniel’s office. She didn’t understand it. She took pictures because she thought somebody might blame her if it went missing.”
“What?”
“Payment records.”
Nathan waited.
“To who?”
“I don’t know all the names.”
“Eli.”
“I’m eleven.”
The answer landed harder than Nathan expected.
He looked at the boy.
Eli’s face had none of the practiced cunning Nathan associated with adults who cornered him for favors. He simply looked tired.
Nathan lowered his voice.
“What did Ray know?”
Eli swallowed.
“He knew about Lucas.”
Nathan’s ribs tightened around his lungs.
“Say exactly what he told you.”
“He said Lucas came to the lake house the week before he died.”
“I know that.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No.”
“Daniel was.”
Nathan said nothing.
“Ray said Lucas was scared.”
“My son was not scared of Daniel.”
“Maybe he should’ve been.”
Nathan lunged forward before he knew he had moved.
Pain stopped him.
Eli did not flinch.
“Don’t talk about my family like you know them.”
“You asked.”
“I asked what Ray told you.”
“That is what Ray told me.”
Nathan pushed himself back against the pillar.
His hands were fists.
He forced them open.
“Go on.”
“Lucas asked Ray if there were cameras around the boathouse.”
Nathan remembered the boathouse.
The cameras had been installed after vandals broke three windows.
“They were removed.”
“Ray said Daniel ordered him to turn them off.”
“When?”
“Four days before Lucas died.”
Nathan looked toward the SUV.
Nothing moved.
“Why would Lucas care?”
“Because he thought Daniel was stealing from the company.”
Nathan let out a breath.
“Lucas was twenty-three. He had no operational role.”
“He had access to something.”
“To what?”
“Your login.”
Nathan’s head snapped toward him.
Eli raised both hands.
“I don’t know. Ray didn’t explain everything.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
Nathan rubbed the heel of his palm against his forehead.
Lucas had interned at Vale Meridian for two summers. He had hated it. The offices, the ties, the way people laughed too hard at Nathan’s jokes.
Nathan had been privately offended by that.
At the time, he thought Lucas was rejecting him.
Later he had told himself Lucas simply wanted another life.
“What did Lucas find?”
“Payments.”
Nathan almost smiled bitterly.
“Everything is payments with you.”
“Because people kill each other for money.”
“Children should not know that.”
“Tell adults.”
Nathan closed his eyes again.
There it was.
Something about the boy’s voice made him sound younger and older at the same time.
“What happened after Lucas came to the lake?”
“Ray said he and Daniel fought.”
“About money?”
“He couldn’t hear all of it.”
“Where?”
“Boathouse.”
Nathan remembered the police photographs.
Lucas’s car found against a tree forty miles north.
A rain-slick road.
Alcohol in his bloodstream just below the legal limit.
No skid marks worth analyzing.
No witness.
The death had been ruled accidental.
Nathan had accepted that because rejecting it would not have changed the coffin.
“What did Ray hear?”
Eli’s gaze shifted toward the SUV again.
Nathan saw it this time.
Fear.
Not theatrical fear.
The small involuntary tightening of the boy’s jaw.
“Eli.”
“Daniel said something about your signature.”
Nathan’s stomach turned.
“And Lucas?”
“Ray said Lucas told him, ‘If anything happens to me, Nate has to know.’”
Nobody called Nathan Nate except Caroline and Daniel.
Lucas had called him Dad.
Sometimes Nathan.
Never Nate.
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
“Ray said Lucas was quoting Daniel.”
Nathan went silent.
“He gave Ray the compass because Daniel knew you’d recognize it. Lucas said if something happened, Ray should only give it to you when he had proof.”
“Why the compass?”
“Because Daniel couldn’t fake what it meant to you.”
Nathan looked at the initials.
L.V.
Lucas Vale.
The compass had belonged first to Nathan’s father. He had given it to Lucas when Lucas turned sixteen.
Nobody outside the family knew that.
Almost nobody.
“How did another compass get buried with him?”
“Lucas bought one online.”
Nathan almost objected.
Then stopped.
The compass had been common enough twenty years ago.
The engraving had been shallow.
He had been grief-stricken at the funeral home.
He had never examined it closely.
Eli continued.
“Ray kept the real one hidden.”
“For four years?”
“Because he was scared.”
“What changed?”
“My mom.”
Nathan felt the pieces trying to fit.
He resisted them.
Eli hugged his arms around his knees.
“She found something in Daniel’s office. Ray saw the pictures. He recognized one of the names because Lucas had written it down.”
“What name?”
“Palmer Ridge.”
Nathan knew it immediately.
Palmer Ridge Consulting.
A vendor used by one of Vale Meridian’s logistics divisions.
Daniel had personally recommended them.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did the records show?”
“Money leaving your company and coming back somewhere else.”
Nathan’s mind began moving faster than his body could.
Shell vendors.
Circular billing.
Kickbacks.
Embezzlement.
Maybe tax fraud.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe an eleven-year-old misunderstanding accounting spreadsheets.
“Where are the pictures?”
“Police took my mom’s phone.”
“Did she send them anywhere?”
Eli’s face changed.
Nathan noticed.
“She did.”
“To Ray?”
“No.”
“To you?”
Eli looked away.
“Eli.”
“She saved them somewhere.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
Nathan studied him.
For the first time, the boy looked angry.
Good.
Anger made more sense than impossible calm.
“What happened after your mother found the records?”
“Daniel reported the missing money.”
“How quickly?”
“Next morning.”
Nathan’s stomach sank.
“And the banking tokens were found where?”
“In our apartment.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Of course.
“Your mother had access to his office.”
“Yeah.”
“And someone found financial credentials in her apartment.”
“Police did.”
“And the money?”
“Accounts in her name.”
Nathan said nothing.
Eli’s voice became rougher.
“She didn’t know the accounts existed.”
Nathan had heard versions of that sentence from accused employees before.
Sometimes they were true.
May you like
Often they were not.
Eli seemed to read the doubt on his face.
