Chương 7
“Twenty-eight.”
“That difference has never mattered less.”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“He is trying to help.”
“I know.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“The problem is I don’t want Emily thinking she said something and rich people started giving us things.”
Thomas sighed.
“You are missing shifts because of something that happened at work.”
“Then pay me according to policy.”
“Our policy gives three emergency days.”
“I’ll take three.”
“You may need more.”
“Then I’ll figure it out.”
“Rachel, please don’t make poverty into a moral principle.”
Her face heated.
“I’m not.”
“You are sometimes.”
She looked toward the living room.
Danielle had appeared in the doorway.
Rachel turned away.
“I said no.”
Thomas was quiet.
Then he said, “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m still paying you for last night.”
“You should.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No. But this week is making a case.”
Rachel hung up.
Danielle leaned against the doorframe.
“That sounded mature.”
“Don’t.”
“How much paid leave?”
“Unknown.”
“And you said no.”
“Yes.”
Danielle opened the refrigerator.
“Your daughter may have interrupted an attempted murder and you are worried about the ethics of payroll.”
Rachel sat at the kitchen table.
“I’m worried about owing Vincent Hale.”
“You already owe the electric company.”
“That is different.”
“How?”
“The electric company can’t have a man followed.”
Danielle stopped.
Rachel looked at her.
“He can. People like him solve problems by moving other people around.”
“Maybe you’re judging him.”
“I am absolutely judging him.”
“Based on?”
Rachel thought of Vincent listening to his brother’s hospital call.
Of him stopping his guards with one finger.
Of him pulling a chair out for Emily.
Of the way he had said thank you.
“Experience,” she said.
Danielle handed her coffee.
It was weak and too sweet.
Rachel drank it anyway.
At eight, Emily woke and asked for her camera.
At nine, she asked again.
At ten fifteen, a local news van parked outside Bellamy House.
By noon, the story was online.
HEIRESS CHILD WITNESS was one headline.
Emily was not an heiress.
Another called her “a mystery girl.”
A third had somehow obtained a photograph from Rachel’s public social media profile, taken the year before at Emily’s school art fair.
Rachel’s phone began ringing.
She shut it off.
Danielle stared at her own screen.
“They have your name now.”
Rachel’s stomach dropped.
“How?”
“Someone posted that you work at Bellamy.”
“Who?”
“No idea.”
Emily was at the dining table making a sandwich badly.
Rachel went over.
“Sweetheart.”
Emily looked up.
“Too much mustard?”
“Yes. Also, people may talk about what happened last night.”
“Police?”
“Other people.”
“Why?”
“Because people like stories.”
Emily considered this.
“Even if they don’t know what happened?”
“Especially then.”
Emily scraped mustard from the bread with a knife.
“What do I do?”
“Nothing. You don’t answer strangers. You don’t talk to reporters. If somebody from school messages you, show me.”
Emily frowned.
“Can I tell Maya?”
Rachel hesitated.
Maya was Emily’s best friend.
Eight-year-old secrets had a half-life of approximately nine minutes.
“You can tell Maya you had a scary night and you’re okay.”
“But not the bottle.”
“Not yet.”
Emily looked disappointed.
“Why?”
“Because the police are still figuring it out.”
Emily pressed the sandwich together.
Mustard squeezed onto the plate.
“Adults make everything take forever.”
Rachel looked at Danielle.
Danielle said, “She’s not wrong.”
At the hospital, Vincent watched the same headlines.
His communications director wanted a statement.
His lawyer wanted no statement.
His board chair wanted reassurance that Adrian’s collapse did not affect Monday’s financing vote.
Vincent wanted everyone to disappear.
He sat in the family waiting room while his chief financial officer, Ellen Park, placed a laptop between them.
“I pulled the vendor data Adrian flagged.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I told you to wait for police.”
“You told me to preserve it. I preserved it.”
“Did you access anything Marcus controlled?”
“Read-only backup.”
“What did you find?”
Ellen turned the screen.
Rows of payments.
Consulting fees.
Project management charges.
Construction oversight.
Nothing dramatic.
That was the problem.
Large theft rarely arrived labeled theft.
“Three vendors share a mailing address,” Ellen said. “Two share a banking contact. One has no meaningful web presence.”
“How much?”
“Over twenty-six months? Four-point-eight million.”
Vincent stared at the number.
“Authorized by?”
“Some by Marcus. Some by you.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
She clicked.
His digital approval appeared.
He recognized it.
The date.
He had been in Tokyo.
“Marcus sent me the approval batch.”
“Yes.”
“I reviewed it.”
“You reviewed a summary.”
Vincent leaned back.
Ellen’s tone softened.
“Everybody does.”
“Adrian didn’t.”
“No.”
That landed.
Vincent looked at the hospital room door.
Ellen closed the laptop.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being relieved it wasn’t me.”
He looked at her.
She gave an embarrassed half laugh.
“When you called at five in the morning and told me not to speak to Marcus, my first thought was that Adrian found fraud. My second thought was that you suspected me.”
Vincent looked away.
“Did you steal four million dollars?”
“No.”
“Then stop apologizing.”
“That is not how anxiety works.”
Despite himself, he almost smiled.
Ellen put the laptop into her bag.
“Police need this.”
“They’ll have it.”
“Vincent.”
“Yes?”
“If Marcus did it, he didn’t do it because he suddenly became evil Tuesday night.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She stood.
“He’s been beside you eleven years.”
That was the part nobody on television would understand.
Marcus was not a stranger who had entered Vincent’s life with a weapon.
Marcus had attended Adrian’s fortieth birthday.
He had driven Vincent’s mother home from the hospital after cataract surgery.
He knew which board members lied about golf.
He knew Vincent hated mint toothpaste and that Adrian always ordered fries despite pretending not to want them.
May you like
When Vincent’s marriage ended six years earlier, Marcus had slept on the couch in his townhouse because Vincent had drunk too much and refused to admit he should not be alone.
Trust did not vanish when evidence appeared.
