Chương 7
He left the phone where it was.
“You’re right.”
Mara exhaled.
“I hate that.”
“What?”
“That you said it so easily.”
He gave her a tired look.
“I can argue if it would help.”
“Probably not.”
A knock came at the door.
Evan stepped in.
“Sir. Lewis Hall has arrived. Also, Ms. Reed is asking to leave.”
Damian stood.
“Is anything stopping her?”
“No.”
“Then she can leave.”
Evan hesitated.
“She says her car service was canceled.”
Damian’s face remained blank.
Mara remembered the frozen accounts.
“Her card was probably declined,” she said.
Evan looked as if he had not considered commenting on that.
Damian picked up his phone.
“Arrange a car.”
Mara looked at him.
He saw the question.
“I’m not trapping her here.”
That answer mattered.
Vanessa had hurt her.
Vanessa may have framed her.
Still, Mara did not want the story turned into one powerful person imprisoning another inside a house because he could.
“Thank you,” she said.
Damian looked almost surprised.
“For what?”
“Not making me watch something else I’d have to feel bad about later.”
His expression changed.
Not quite shame.
Close.
“Evan, tell Vanessa she can take clothing and personal essentials. Nothing from the office, cellar, storage rooms, or staff areas. No household devices. Photograph what leaves. She can have her attorney arrange the rest tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And nobody searches her body or personal handbag unless she consents.”
“Understood.”
After Evan left, Mara said, “You’ve thought about this before.”
“About separating somebody from a residence?”
“Yes.”
“Business divorces are less polite than actual divorces.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It is.”
Lewis arrived two minutes later carrying a laptop case, three paper folders, and the expression of a man who had driven too fast while trying not to look like he was driving too fast.
He stopped when he saw Mara’s arm.
“Oh, hell.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“That’s becoming a popular opinion.”
Lewis set the folders on the table.
“What happened?”
“Later,” Mara said. “Show him.”
Lewis looked at Damian.
The old formality returned.
“Some of these are copies. Some are originals.”
He opened the first folder.
Inside were invoices from a company called Bellwether Event Logistics.
Damian read the first page.
“I don’t know them.”
“Neither do I,” Lewis said. “But we’ve paid them at least twenty-three times.”
“We?”
“Your household entity.”
“For what?”
“Event transport, specialty storage, temporary personnel.”
Damian flipped pages.
Mara leaned closer.
She recognized dates.
“This one was the January dinner.”
Lewis nodded.
Mara pointed.
“There was no temporary staff company that night. We used Cortland.”
“I know.”
Damian looked at another invoice.
“Who approved these?”
Lewis did not answer.
He turned the page.
Vanessa Reed’s digital approval appeared at the bottom.
Beneath it was a secondary authorization.
Graham Vale.
Damian sat very still.
“How much?”
Lewis opened the laptop.
“The invoices I identified total just under eight hundred thousand.”
Mara blinked.
Eight hundred thousand dollars.
The number was so far beyond the scale of her life that for a moment it meant less than a missed paycheck.
Damian barely reacted.
Lewis noticed.
“That’s only what I could match to services I know were not performed.”
“How much total went to Bellwether?”
“Two point four million over nineteen months.”
This time Damian’s eyes lifted.
Mara understood then that numbers became real for rich people at different altitudes.
Lewis continued.
“There are two other vendors with similar patterns.”
“Owners?”
“Shell companies. I stopped when Graham told me I was crossing into family-office territory.”
“Why keep copies?”
Lewis looked at Mara.
“Because she kept asking why deliveries weren’t here.”
Mara stared at him.
“You told me I was being obsessive.”
“You were being obsessive.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I was trying to make you stop asking in front of Vanessa.”
“You could have told me.”
“I didn’t know if telling you put you at risk.”
Mara looked at her bruised arm.
“That worked out beautifully.”
Lewis rubbed his face.
“I know.”
The ugliness of his guilt made it hard to stay angry.
Not impossible.
Just hard.
Damian said, “Bellwether’s ownership?”
Lewis turned the laptop around.
“Registered agent in Delaware. Mailing address in Manhattan. Bank destination information isn’t visible to me.”
Damian took a photograph of the screen with his phone.
Lewis put out a hand.
“Don’t send that.”
Damian looked at him.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
A strange pause followed.
Mara looked between them.
Lewis cleared his throat.
“Sorry.”
“No,” Damian said. “You’re right.”
He put the phone facedown again.
That was the second time in twenty minutes Mara watched a billionaire resist the urge to solve a problem with the object in his hand.
It was not redemption.
It was at least interesting.
The door opened.
Vanessa stood there.
No guard had announced her.
She had changed nothing about herself except her face.
The polished expression was gone.
She still wore the burgundy gown and diamonds, but without the certainty beneath them the clothes looked almost theatrical.
Her gaze went first to the folders.
Then Lewis.
“You.”
Lewis’s shoulders tightened.
Vanessa looked at Damian.
“You brought him back?”
“He came back.”
“Same difference.”
“No,” Mara said.
Everyone looked at her.
She had not meant to speak.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed.
Mara continued anyway.
“It isn’t.”
Vanessa took one step into the room.
The guard outside moved.
Damian raised a hand slightly, stopping him.
Vanessa looked at the three people around the scarred staff table.
“This is pathetic.”
Nobody answered.
“Really. Look at you.”
Her voice shook at the edges now.
“You think you’ve uncovered some criminal conspiracy because the florist bills are messy?”
Lewis closed the folder.
“They’re not messy.”
“Lewis, you once made a dishwasher file an incident report over a broken garden hose.”
“Pressure washer.”
Mara looked at him.
“Not now.”
“Sorry.”
Vanessa stared at them as if their ordinary exchange offended her more than anger would have.
Damian said, “Who owns Bellwether?”
“I have no idea.”
May you like
“Why did you approve invoices from them?”
“Because Graham told me to.”
