Chương 5
He turned away before she could answer.
The board meeting was due to begin in forty-three minutes.
Vincent called his assistant and canceled it.
Within three minutes Bennett called back.
“Tell me Damian is exaggerating,” the lawyer said without greeting.
“What did he tell you?”
“That you assaulted him, seized his phone, confined him, and accused him of murder in front of household staff.”
“I did not confine him.”
“Is that the part you object to?”
Vincent looked through the window. Damian was halfway down the drive.
“Freeze the fleet sale,” he said.
Silence.
“Vincent.”
“Do not move funds, release signatures, or circulate documents.”
“The board has spent six months on this.”
“Then they can survive a day.”
“They may not. The lender waiver expires Friday.”
“Who is the buyer?”
“You know who the buyer is.”
“Tell me.”
Bennett exhaled. “North Vale Logistics.”
Vincent looked at the ledger.
Kevin Vale.
“Who introduced them?”
Another silence.
Then Bennett said, “Damian.”
Vincent ended the call.
He sat at the desk and opened the ledger again without touching the pages directly. The entries were cramped but consistent. Some were in Daniel Carter’s handwriting, which Sophia recognized from the message on the photograph. Others were copied from printed service records. Beside several payments appeared the letters N.V.L.
North Vale Logistics.
The proposed buyer of the fleet division had incorporated four months after Celeste and Arya died.
Vincent felt the room narrow.
Leon said, “What?”
“The buyer is connected.”
“Connected how?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Sophia stood near the fireplace, rubbing Emma’s arms through the oversized socks and blanket. “Daniel said there were companies inside companies. He said money changed names until it looked clean.”
Vincent turned toward her.
“You knew about the ledger.”
“I knew he was writing things down.”
“You knew about Damian.”
“I knew Daniel was afraid of him.”
“That is not the same answer.”
She looked at Emma. “Not here.”
Emma said, “I know he killed Daddy.”
Sophia flinched as if struck.
“No, baby.”
“You said.”
“I said he hurt us.”
“You said he buried him.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
Vincent rose. “Leon, take Emma to the kitchen.”
“No.” Sophia’s response was immediate.
“I’m not sending her away. I’m asking Leon to make her breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry,” Emma said.
Leon crouched with an audible groan. “Mrs. Alvarez made cinnamon toast.”
Emma considered this.
“She burns it.”
“She calls that caramelized.”
“It’s burned.”
“I agree, but saying so hurts her feelings.”
Emma looked at her mother.
Sophia nodded once.
The child slid from the sofa and took Leon’s hand. At the door she glanced back at Vincent.
“Don’t break the recorder.”
“I won’t.”
“You broke the cup.”
“That was a mistake.”
She studied him with uncomfortable seriousness. “You looked like you meant it.”
Then she left.
Sophia waited until the door closed.
“I was going to throw the cup away,” she said.
Vincent remained standing behind the desk. “This morning?”
“Last night. Emma woke up crying because she’d played the recorder again. She said the man on it sounded like Mr. Damian. I told her she was wrong.”
“You recognized him.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of coming to me—”
“I took it to the garden to get rid of it.”
“Why the garden?”
“I thought the pond.”
“But Emma followed you.”
“She follows me when she thinks I’m leaving.”
The answer landed with more force than Sophia seemed to intend.
Vincent looked down at the ledger.
“Start at the beginning,” he said.
She laughed once, without humor. “People like you always think there’s a beginning.”
“Then start where you stopped being innocent.”
Her eyes lifted.
He had gone too far. He knew it, but anger had become the only thing holding his grief upright.
Sophia pulled the cardigan closed over her gray dress. One of its buttons was missing.
“Daniel worked on the estate vehicles,” she said. “Not officially. The dealership contract cost too much, and Damian liked cash repairs because there were fewer records. Daniel had his own shop then. Small. Two lifts, one employee, always behind on rent.”
“How did Damian know him?”
“Through me. I asked if the estate had work.”
Vincent remembered none of this.
That fact shamed him more than he expected.
“Daniel liked Mr. Damian at first,” Sophia continued. “Everyone did. He paid on time. He remembered Emma’s birthday. When the shop’s air compressor broke, he arranged a loan.”
“A favor.”
“A leash.”
Vincent said nothing.
“Two weeks before the crash, Celeste brought the Range Rover to Daniel herself. She said the brake pedal felt soft.”
Vincent’s breathing stopped.
Sophia saw it.
“She came to your husband?”
“She didn’t trust the dealership report.”
“Why not?”
“She thought Damian had changed it.”
Vincent placed both hands on the desk.
Celeste had told him the brake pedal felt wrong. They had been in their bedroom. He had been fastening cuff links for a dinner in Manhattan, and she had been standing barefoot on the rug, angry that he was leaving again.
He had told her the car had passed inspection.
She said, According to Damian.
He said, You are making everything about Damian because you cannot admit you’re exhausted.
She threw one of his cuff links across the room.
He found it beneath the radiator after her funeral.
“What did Daniel find?” he asked.
“Nothing at first. The system tested normally. But there was a service order telling him to replace a sensor and clear the onboard warnings. Damian told him to sign it with the date from the previous week.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
Sophia did not protect her husband with the answer.
Vincent respected her for that and hated that he did.
“Daniel needed the money,” she said. “He told himself it was paperwork. Then he saw Kevin Vale at the shop after closing. Vale worked for one of the fleet subcontractors. Daniel knew him a little. He was good with brakes and bad with everything else.”
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“What did he see?”
“Vale had the Range Rover on the lift. Damian was there.”
