Chương 4
“I saw it in Daddy’s picture box.”
“What picture box?”
“The blue one under the floor.”
Sophia sat back on her heels.
Vincent said, “Where?”
Emma looked uncertain, suddenly aware that the room had changed around her. “At Nana’s.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
“My mother’s house,” she said. “Daniel stored tools there after he closed the shop.”
Leon reached for his phone.
Damian rose again.
This time Vincent moved between him and the door.
Damian’s composure cracked at the edges. “You cannot search a private residence because a child remembers a colored box.”
“No one said search,” Leon replied. “I’m calling people who can ask.”
“Your former colleagues are not your private investigators.”
“They never were.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Leon’s face became still in the way police faces did when anger had been trained into procedure. “Sit down, Damian.”
Damian looked at Vincent.
Vincent said nothing.
Damian lowered himself into the chair.
Leon called Captain Nora Velez, who had once supervised highway investigations before taking over a statewide cold-case group. He gave her only the essential facts: possible evidence connected to the Moretti crash, a recording naming brake tampering, a ledger recovered from the estate, and an implicated party currently present.
He did not identify Damian until she asked directly.
There was a long pause.
Then Leon said, “Yes. That Damian Russo.”
He listened.
“No, he isn’t detained. The gates are closed because Vincent owns them.”
Another pause.
“I’ll tell him.”
Leon ended the call.
“She said nobody touches anything. She’s coming with an evidence technician and two detectives. She also said Mr. Russo is free to leave.”
Damian stood immediately.
“But,” Leon added, “she would prefer that he remain.”
“I’m sure she would.”
Vincent stepped aside from the door.
Sophia looked at him, alarmed. “You’re letting him go?”
“I’m not a policeman.”
Damian slipped his ring back onto his finger.
At the threshold, Vincent said, “Your driver fled.”
Damian paused.
“That is not my responsibility.”
“You hired him.”
“For this morning.”
“Name.”
Damian’s hand tightened around the door handle. “Colin Price.”
Leon typed it into his phone.
Damian looked at Sophia. “You should think carefully before you destroy your daughter’s life over something Daniel may have misunderstood.”
Sophia’s fear returned so quickly it seemed to enter her body from the floor.
Vincent saw it.
Damian did too.
He left.
The front door closed a minute later. No engine started. The estate gates remained locked, and Damian’s hired car was gone. He walked instead, down the long drive in his charcoal coat, past hedges dripping with rain.
Leon watched through the library window.
“He knows the property cameras don’t cover the west wall,” he said.
Vincent looked at him. “Why don’t they?”
“Storm damage last month.”
“Who delayed the repair?”
Leon hesitated.
“Say it.”
“Mr. Russo said the vendor price was inflated.”
Sophia sat on the edge of the sofa. Emma climbed beside her and leaned against her arm, though she kept watching the desk.
Vincent picked up his phone.
He had fourteen missed notifications. Three from his chief financial officer. Two from Bennett, the company’s general counsel. One from Damian sent at 5:41 that morning, before Vincent had called him.
We need to speak privately before the board session.
Vincent read it twice.
The meeting had been scheduled for eight-thirty to approve the sale of Moretti Transit’s regional fleet division. Damian had negotiated the deal. The proceeds were supposed to cover debt from a failed expansion and preserve the company’s remaining operations.
Celeste had once called the fleet division the only honest part of the business.
Trucks moved things, she said. Numbers only pretended to.
Vincent turned the phone toward Leon.
“Why did Damian come here before the board meeting?” Leon asked.
“He said I asked him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Sophia whispered, “He knew.”
Vincent looked at her.
She stared at the muddy recorder on the printer paper. “He knew Emma found the cup.”
“How?”
Sophia’s eyes moved to her daughter.
Emma pulled the blanket up to her chin.
“Emma,” Vincent said, lowering his voice. “Did you tell anyone?”
The child shook her head.
Sophia touched the repaired pocket of Emma’s dress. “She took it to school on Friday.”
“It was for sharing circle,” Emma said.
Sophia’s face tightened. “You told me you brought the photograph.”
“I brought both.”
“What did you say about the cup?”
“That Daddy hid secrets in it.”
Leon muttered something under his breath.
Vincent crouched so that his eyes were level with Emma’s. The movement pulled his suit across his shoulders, and one knee cracked loudly. Emma looked at it.
“Mine does that too,” she said.
“You’re seven.”
“It still does.”
For one absurd second, Leon smiled.
Vincent did not.
“Who heard you talk about the cup?”
“My teacher. The kids.”
“Any visitors?”
Emma thought. Her eyes moved slowly toward the ceiling. “A man talked to Mrs. Bell after.”
“What man?”
“He had shiny shoes.”
“That narrows it down,” Leon said.
Sophia gave him a look.
Emma continued. “He asked if my daddy fixed cars.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“He said my dress was pretty.”
Sophia’s grip tightened around the child. “What did he look like?”
“Normal.”
“Hair?”
“Brown.”
“Old?”
Emma considered Vincent, then Leon. “In the middle.”
Leon rubbed his mouth.
Vincent said, “Did he wear a ring?”
Emma looked at Damian’s empty chair.
“No.”
“Did he say his name?”
“He said he was helping with school safety.”
Sophia stood so quickly that the blanket slid to the floor. “I’m taking her away from here.”
“Where?” Leon asked.
“My mother’s.”
“If there’s evidence at your mother’s house, that may be the first place someone goes.”
“She has neighbors.”
“Neighbors call after something happens.”
Sophia looked at Vincent as if he had arranged the danger personally.
He accepted it.
“Emma stays here until Velez arrives,” he said. “Then we decide.”
“You don’t decide.”
May you like
“No. You do. But decide with the information you have, not the fear Damian trained into you.”
Her mouth opened.
