Chương 5
Maya covered her mouth.
Alexander watched her eyes fill, then watched her blink the tears away before Lily could see.
That restraint told him more than crying would have.
“You knew,” he said.
Maya turned.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since Claire was seven weeks pregnant.”
Something hot moved under his ribs.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“You knew they were mine?”
“She believed they were.”
“Believed?”
“Claire had no other partner.”
“Then why—”
Maya lifted one finger.
“Don’t make me defend her to you while she’s missing.”
The room went quiet.
Alexander looked at Lily.
She was adjusting Mae’s blanket with painfully careful hands.
He lowered his voice.
“I’m trying to understand.”
“No. You’re trying to regain control.”
“That’s an impressive diagnosis from eight words.”
“I had three years of Claire complaining about you.”
Lily looked up.
“She complained a lot.”
“Thank you, Lily,” Alexander said.
“You’re welcome.”
Maya almost smiled.
Then she reached into the canvas bag and removed a sealed envelope.
“This was left with me three weeks ago.”
Alexander did not take it.
“For whom?”
“Police, if Claire became unreachable for more than twelve hours under suspicious circumstances.”
Ortiz, who had returned to the room, stepped forward.
Maya handed it to her instead.
“Good,” Alexander said.
Maya glanced at him.
“That may be the first correct decision you’ve made today.”
“I gave them my phone.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Second.”
The envelope contained copies rather than originals.
Claire had documented a series of payments from Blackwood Development subsidiaries to consulting vendors connected through overlapping addresses and officers. She did not accuse Alexander directly. She wrote that she had first discovered inconsistencies while working in internal audit eighteen months earlier.
She had raised concerns.
The inquiry had been closed.
The payments continued.
She later found evidence that some authorizations bore Alexander’s electronic approval even on dates when she believed he had been outside the country and unable to review them.
That was why she had come to him ten months earlier.
Not to accuse him.
To test whether he knew.
Alexander read the copy Maya allowed him to see.
A specific date appeared three times.
April 14.
He remembered April 14 because he had been in Montreal, hospitalized overnight after a skiing accident during a client retreat. Cracked ribs. Mild concussion. No laptop.
His uncle had acted under emergency executive authority for forty-eight hours.
Alexander closed his eyes.
Maya watched him.
“You see it.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Graham had proxy authority.”
Ortiz looked up.
“Your uncle could approve payments as you?”
“Under certain emergency conditions. The audit trail should show the proxy.”
“Should?”
Alexander’s mouth tightened.
“If it doesn’t, someone altered the display layer or the export Claire saw. The underlying logs should still exist.”
“Where?”
“Cloud archive managed by an outside compliance vendor.”
“Can your uncle access it?”
“Not without leaving a record.”
Ortiz pointed at him.
“You are not touching it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m learning.”
Maya crossed her arms.
“Claire would enjoy this.”
Alexander looked at her.
“Claire would enjoy me being investigated?”
“Claire would enjoy someone telling you no and surviving.”
Lily, listening from the chair, said, “Mom says he needs practice.”
Alexander stared at the ceiling for a moment.
“Your mother is building a coalition.”
The hospital kept the children through the afternoon.
No one allowed Alexander to simply take them home.
He found, to his irritation and eventual embarrassment, that he had unconsciously assumed somebody would.
Maya held a temporary guardianship authorization Claire had executed for Lily and emergency medical authority for the infants if Claire became incapacitated. The hospital still had to verify it. A county child-welfare worker reviewed the situation and spoke separately to Lily, Maya, Ortiz, and Alexander.
The process took hours.
There were forms.
More forms.
Calls to administrators.
At one point Alexander stood at a vending machine with Marcus trying to make it accept a five-dollar bill.
“It hates you,” Marcus said.
“It’s defective.”
“It took mine.”
Alexander flattened the bill against the side of the machine.
“This is an unreasonable design.”
“You should acquire the company.”
“I’m considering it.”
A woman beside them laughed before she could stop herself.
Alexander looked at her.
She apologized.
He shook his head.
“No. He deserved that.”
For ten minutes, the crisis was reduced to bad coffee, a vending machine, and Marcus eating peanut crackers that smelled faintly of cardboard.
Then Ortiz called.
Security footage from the Renshaw showed two men entering through the service garage at 9:06 the previous night using an electronic contractor credential.
The credential belonged to Vale Strategic Solutions.
At 9:41, the same men exited.
Claire was between them.
Alive.
Walking.
One hand held against the side of her head.
They put her into a black Suburban.
Martin Vale was clearly visible.
The second man was not.
Lily had escaped through a rear service door at 7:28 that morning.
Vale returned to the building at 7:35.
He followed her toward Blackwood Tower.
Alexander watched the video once.
Only once.
Claire looked smaller than he remembered.
Not physically.
There was something about the way a person looked when another person controlled the direction of every step.
He pushed the tablet back toward Ortiz.
“Can you find the vehicle?”
“We’re working on it.”
“The contractor credential should have an issuer.”
“We’re working on that too.”
“I can tell you where—”
Ortiz stared at him.
Alexander stopped.
Marcus rubbed his mouth.
Maya whispered, “Growth.”
At five twenty, the compliance company provided access logs under emergency consent from Blackwood Development and the relevant legal process arranged by investigators.
Alexander had voluntarily authorized the company to release records.
Graham called seven times while he was signing.
Alexander ignored six.
He answered the seventh.
“What are you releasing?” Graham demanded.
“Records.”
“To whom?”
“Investigators.”
“Which records?”
“All access logs tied to the payments Claire identified.”
A long silence.
Then Graham said, “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
May you like
“I’m beginning to.”
“You are putting eight thousand employees at risk because a woman you slept with left you a conspiracy theory.”
