Chương 5
“We?”
Arthur rubbed his thumb over his wedding band. “I made the decision.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
A courthouse officer pushed a cart of files past them. Arthur waited until the wheels stopped rattling.
“Harrison controlled the lender.”
“Then you gave money to a lender he controlled?”
“He controlled access to it, not the company.”
“You’re making a distinction you hope I’m too tired to examine.”
“I’m telling you there are things I couldn’t put in an email.”
“Then tell the special committee.”
His silence answered.
Teresa stepped closer. “What does Harrison have?”
Arthur’s face changed, not into panic but something more private. Shame, perhaps. Or calculation wearing shame’s expression.
“Saturday at ten,” he said.
He walked away before Victoria returned.
Genevieve contacted Teresa that afternoon.
The message arrived from an unfamiliar number.
I know you have no reason to speak to me. Arthur is lying about Harrison. I can prove it.
Teresa stared at the words while Ethan worked on a replacement moon chart at the dining table. He had drawn Earth too large and insisted it was artistic perspective. A smear of blue marker crossed the side of his hand.
She forwarded the message to Victoria.
Do not respond, Victoria wrote.
Teresa typed, I wasn’t planning to.
Then she saved the number under Genevieve’s name.
On Tuesday, Arthur took Ethan to a small Italian restaurant near the school. Teresa waited in the parking lot across the street, though the order did not require her to remain nearby. At seven twenty, Arthur emerged holding Ethan’s backpack. Ethan walked several feet ahead of him.
When they reached Teresa’s car, Arthur handed her the backpack.
“He had pizza and half a salad.”
“I had one leaf,” Ethan said.
“It was a large leaf.”
“It was spinach.”
“You survived.”
Arthur’s attempt at humor fell between them. Ethan climbed into the car without saying goodbye.
“What happened?” Teresa asked.
Arthur glanced through the rear window. “A boy at school told him I stole money.”
Teresa’s stomach dropped. “Who?”
“He won’t say.”
“Did you ask?”
“Of course I asked.”
“Did you tell him anything?”
“I told him adults are reviewing business decisions and that he didn’t need to worry.”
“Long words,” Ethan muttered from the back seat.
Arthur closed his eyes briefly.
“Someone leaked the board investigation,” he said.
“Or someone’s parent works at the company.”
“Either way, this is spreading.”
“You emailed half the building about my emotional condition.”
“That was before I knew the board would—”
“Before you knew it would cost you.”
Arthur’s shoulders lowered. Rain dotted his coat. “He asked whether I’m going to jail.”
Teresa looked at Ethan. He stared straight ahead, chin tucked into the navy hood.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m not telling an eight-year-old his father might go to prison.”
“And I’m not promising him you won’t.”
Ethan kicked the back of Teresa’s seat. Once. Hard.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
Both adults went silent.
At home, Ethan refused dinner. He locked himself in the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet lid behind the whale curtain. Teresa sat on the floor outside the door.
“I’m not going to ask you to come out,” she said.
“Okay.”
“I’m sitting here.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I am alone.”
The sentence passed beneath the door with no anger in it.
Teresa leaned her head against the wall. From downstairs came the muffled drill of the dentist closing late. Pipes knocked somewhere in the building. She considered telling Ethan that he was loved, that none of this was his fault, that his parents would always be his parents. The phrases seemed ready-made, printed for adults who had broken a child’s home and needed language that made the damage sound organized.
“I don’t know how to do this well,” she said.
The lock clicked.
Ethan opened the door a few inches. His eyes were wet, but he was not crying.
“Dad said you hate him.”
“I’m angry with him.”
“That means yes.”
“No. It means I don’t know what I feel every minute.”
He opened the door wider.
“Do you hate her?”
Teresa pictured Genevieve standing beneath the chandelier, bags hanging from her wrists, fear replacing smugness. It would have been easier if Genevieve had remained only that image.
“I don’t know her well enough to hate her,” Teresa said.
“That sounds fake.”
“It might be a little fake.”
Ethan considered this and stepped into the hallway.
Genevieve sent a second message that night. A photograph appeared beneath it, taken from inside a car. Harrison Drake stood beside Arthur outside a storage facility. The timestamp was two days after the emergency account freeze.
He is moving records, Genevieve wrote. Arthur told the committee he hadn’t spoken to him.
This time Teresa called Victoria before forwarding it.
“Do not contact Genevieve,” Victoria said.
“She may have evidence.”
“She may also be creating evidence.”
“The location can be verified.”
“Yes.”
“Then verify it.”
“Through counsel and investigators, not through a woman who slept with your husband.”
“That doesn’t make every word she says false.”
“No. It makes her incentives complicated.”
“So are mine.”
Victoria was quiet for a moment. “That may be the most useful thing you’ve said all week.”
The special committee’s investigator confirmed that Harrison rented two storage units through a subsidiary connected to North Quay. Security logs showed his access card had been used after the board meeting. The grainy exterior footage showed a car resembling Arthur’s, but the license plate was unreadable.
Arthur denied being there.
He provided phone-location data placing him at his attorney’s office during the relevant hour. Bernard sent the records with a letter warning against reliance on anonymously sourced photographs.
The contradiction deepened rather than resolved. Either Genevieve had falsified the timestamp, the footage had been misinterpreted, or Arthur had left his phone somewhere else.
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Teresa met Genevieve on Friday despite Victoria’s instruction.
She chose a coffee shop inside a hotel lobby with security cameras and too many business travelers for privacy. Victoria sent an investigator to sit twenty feet away, which she described as both reckless and less reckless than going alone.
