The Dead Had Been Waiting Beneath Arya’s Sunflower Stone for Five Years

“Mine?”

“Some.”

“Celeste’s?”

Bennett’s expression changed again.

Vincent turned fully toward him. “You represented her.”

“I represented the family office.”

“Did she give you evidence?”

“She gave me suspicions.”

“Did she tell you she was afraid of Damian?”

Bennett sat without being invited.

Outside, an officer crossed the lawn carrying the broken tin cup in an evidence bag. It looked smaller inside plastic.

“Three days before the crash,” Bennett said, “Celeste asked how to amend the family trust so Damian could not act as successor adviser if you died.”

Vincent’s skin went cold.

“Why?”

“She said he had become too involved in decisions that belonged to the two of you.”

“That is not fear.”

“No.”

“What else?”

“She asked whether a private forensic audit could be done without notifying you.”

Vincent stared at him.

Bennett looked down at his hands. “I told her secrecy would make reconciliation harder.”

“What reconciliation?”

“You and Celeste were barely speaking.”

“We argued.”

“You had moved into the east guest suite.”

Vincent said nothing.

Bennett’s voice lowered. “She believed you would defend Damian because you had been doing so for years.”

“And you?”

“I told her to bring me documents.”

“Did she?”

“She scheduled a meeting for the Monday after the crash.”

The brass clock ticked behind them, seven minutes slow.

Vincent walked to the desk and gripped its edge.

“Why did you never tell me?”

“After the crash, investigators found the message she sent you.”

The message.

I cannot let you keep taking her from me. By tonight, this ends.

It had arrived on Vincent’s phone forty minutes before the Range Rover left the road. Damian had interpreted it for him while Vincent sat in the hospital family room.

She meant Arya.

She was threatening to take the child and herself away forever.

Vincent had believed him because the alternative required him to admit Celeste had been trying to tell him something.

“What did Celeste mean?” Vincent asked.

Bennett’s throat worked.

“I assumed the same thing everyone did.”

“You knew she planned to expose Damian on Monday.”

“I knew she planned to discuss financial records.”

“And you still assumed she killed our daughter.”

“I was wrong.”

Vincent crossed the room before he knew where he intended to go. Bennett stood sharply, but Vincent only opened the library doors.

Velez was in the hall.

She had heard enough.

“Mr. Bennett,” she said, “I would like to speak with you.”

He looked at Vincent.

“You should have called me five years ago,” Vincent said.

Bennett’s face sagged with something older than embarrassment.

“I should have called her back,” he replied.

By noon, the first news van parked outside the south gate.

The initial report said Moretti Transit had postponed a major asset sale amid “an internal security event” at the chairman’s residence. Twenty minutes later, a financial website reported that Damian Russo had left the estate on foot after a dispute. By one, anonymous sources described Vincent as unstable and possibly intoxicated.

He had not consumed alcohol in eleven years.

Damian knew that.

Vincent stood in the kitchen eating cold toast over the sink when his chief financial officer called.

“The lenders want a statement,” she said. “Employees are seeing the headlines.”

“Tell them the board meeting was postponed because material information came to light.”

“What information?”

“I cannot say.”

“Then Damian will.”

“Has he called you?”

A pause.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“That you found something connected to Celeste and had an episode.”

Vincent looked across the kitchen.

Sophia sat at the long worktable sewing the missing button back onto her cardigan. Emma colored on the back of an old grocery list with three crayons Mrs. Alvarez had found in a drawer. Velez had advised them not to leave until officers checked Sophia’s mother’s house.

“Did you believe him?” Vincent asked.

The chief financial officer exhaled. “I believed you canceled a transaction that kept us solvent.”

“That was not my question.”

“No. I don’t think you had an episode.”

“Why not?”

“Because when you have an episode, you don’t cancel meetings. You hold them and make everyone miserable.”

He looked at the burned toast in his hand.

“Prepare two statements,” he said. “One for employees. One for lenders. No mention of Celeste or the investigation until Velez approves.”

“And Damian?”

“Remove his system access.”

“He is a director.”

“Remove his administrative access.”

“That requires Bennett.”

“Bennett is busy explaining why my wife’s concerns died in his office.”

The line went quiet.

“I’ll handle it,” she said.

Vincent ended the call.

Emma looked up from her drawing. “Do you yell at everybody?”

“Yes.”

Sophia said, “Emma.”

“What?”

“He does.”

Vincent took another bite of toast. It was burned black at one edge and soft in the center.

Emma pushed her paper toward him.

She had drawn three people under enormous yellow flowers. One was small and barefoot. One wore a gray triangle. The third was a tall black rectangle with lines across its neck.

“What are those?” Vincent asked.

“Your tattoos.”

“They look like whiskers.”

“I only had brown.”

Sophia’s needle stopped.

Emma pointed to a fourth figure near the edge of the paper. It had gray hair and a black coat. Instead of a face, she had drawn a circle with an X through it.

Vincent said, “Who is that?”

“You know.”

Sophia folded the cardigan over her lap. “Don’t make pictures like that.”