Chương 3
Lily was interviewed with Mara present and Nathan outside the room. Ruiz explained that she wanted the child to describe events in her own words without Nathan’s reactions influencing her.
Nathan disliked being excluded from anything involving Lily.
He understood why it was necessary.
He stood in the hallway with Marcus and listened to absolutely nothing through a door thick enough to keep private conversations private, which had always seemed like a desirable architectural feature until then.
Marcus handed him a glass bottle of water from the kitchen.
Nathan checked the cap before opening it.
Marcus noticed.
Neither man said anything.
Nathan drank.
Across the apartment, officers moved quietly through rooms where he had spent years insisting nothing unpredictable happened.
He had bought the penthouse three years earlier because it was private, secure, impossible to enter without passing two staffed access points and a dedicated elevator.
His father would have approved.
Control had been David Cole’s favorite form of religion.
Locks. Contracts. Schedules. Drivers. Reservations under false names. Private elevators. People whose job descriptions included preventing surprises.
Nathan had spent half his life mocking it.
Then he had become worse.
“Julian was screened downstairs?” he asked.
Marcus nodded.
“Standard guest protocol.”
“No bag?”
“Phone, wallet, keys.”
“The vial?”
“Small enough to be in a pocket. We don’t search dinner guests unless there’s a threat reason.”
Nathan stared toward the dining room.
“There was a threat reason.”
“We didn’t know it.”
“I should have.”
Marcus looked at him.
“That’s not how knowing works.”
Nathan hated practical sentences when he was angry.
He drank more water.
“Where is he?”
“Still in the library with his attorney and an officer.”
“Can he leave?”
“Not my call.”
Nathan turned the bottle in his hands.
“Would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Let him leave.”
Marcus considered.
“If nobody arrests him?”
“Yes.”
“I would let the police handle it.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“It was my answer.”
Nathan almost smiled.
Marcus had worked for him for seven years. Before that, he had spent enough time in jobs where bad decisions carried physical consequences that Nathan trusted his instinct for when force made things worse.
Nathan looked toward the closed sitting-room door.
“Lily okay?”
“She’s five.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
The interview lasted twenty-three minutes.
When Lily came out, she walked directly to Nathan and held up both arms.
She had not asked him to carry her in nearly a year.
Nathan picked her up.
She was heavier than he expected.
That embarrassed him.
Her knees pressed against his jacket. She tucked her face into his shoulder, and for a few seconds she did nothing but breathe.
Then she whispered, “I told the truth.”
“I know.”
“She asked me three times.”
“That’s her job.”
“I told it the same.”
“I know.”
Her hand touched his tie.
“Can I sleep in your room?”
Nathan looked at Mara.
Mara nodded.
“Of course.”
“You won’t go to work?”
“Not tonight.”
“Tomorrow?”
Nathan thought of the board meeting scheduled for nine-thirty the next morning.
The meeting that Julian had insisted could not be delayed.
Nathan had spent six weeks preparing for it.
At nine-thirty, the board of Cole Meridian Group was supposed to vote on whether to authorize an independent forensic review of three subsidiaries whose accounting had become increasingly difficult to explain.
Julian had been against the review.
So had Nathan’s uncle Everett.
Nathan felt Lily’s head shift against his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She pulled back.
“You always know.”
“Apparently not.”
For once, she accepted that.
At 1:14 in the morning, the last police officer left.
Julian had not been arrested.
The vial was suspicious. Lily’s account mattered. Mara’s observations mattered. Julian’s movement toward the napkin mattered.
But no laboratory had yet confirmed what was inside the vial, and Julian had denied putting anything on Nathan’s food.
Nathan stood in the entryway as the elevator doors closed behind Detective Ruiz.
“You’re telling me he goes home?”
“I’m telling you the investigation continues,” she said.
“He had the vial.”
“Near his napkin.”
“Under it.”
“Yes.”
“My niece watched him pour something onto my food.”
“Yes.”
“He reached for the vial when she accused him.”
“Yes.”
Nathan waited.
Ruiz waited longer.
He understood the lesson and resented it.
“You don’t work for me,” he said.
“No.”
“Good.”
That earned the faintest change in her expression.
“Mr. Cole, don’t call Mr. Vale. Don’t threaten him, don’t send anyone to follow him, and don’t ask employees to delete or alter anything because you’re worried about embarrassment.”
Nathan stared at her.
“Do people normally need the last instruction?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I wouldn’t.”
She handed him a card.
“If you discover records you believe are relevant, preserve them. Your counsel can coordinate with us.”
“My company has a board meeting in eight hours.”
“I can’t tell you how to run your company.”
“That must be frustrating.”
“Not especially.”
The doors closed.
Nathan stood in the silent foyer holding her card.
Mara appeared behind him.
“She doesn’t like you.”
“She’s the first person tonight showing good judgment.”
Mara folded her arms.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I’m not the one who almost ate poisoned steak.”
“We don’t know it was poison.”
Mara stared at him.
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“Possibly poisoned steak.”
“You’re exhausting.”
“I’ve heard that.”
She started toward the hall.
“Mara.”
She stopped.
Nathan looked at the white cuffs of her uniform.
“Why didn’t you tell me he asked where I was sitting?”
Her shoulders changed.
Only slightly.
Nathan saw it.
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“You told police it made you uncomfortable.”
“It did.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
She rubbed her palms together.
“Because last month I told you Mr. Vale was going through papers on your desk.”
Nathan remembered.
May you like
He had been late for a call with Singapore. Mara had mentioned finding Julian alone in the study after a charity dinner.
Nathan had replied that Julian had worked with the family since before she graduated high school and that she should stop treating guests like burglars.
