Chương 8
“I didn’t.”
“You don’t need verbs for it to count.”
Renata looked from one to the other. “Arthur told me the watch had been removed temporarily.”
“Why?” Lorenzo asked.
She pressed her lips together.
Mara said, “You may stop speaking.”
Renata continued anyway. “He said Dominic was selling information about the house. He said the watch would be used to expose him.”
Lorenzo felt the room narrow.
“How?”
“I was told Clara had been copying security schedules and payroll records for Dominic. Arthur said they were preparing to leave together.”
Clara and Dominic had barely spoken before that night.
“You believed him?” Lorenzo asked.
“I believed there was a leak.”
“Why?”
Renata looked at the portrait above the fireplace rather than at him. “Because your meetings were appearing in federal subpoenas before we received them. Because two vendors knew the date of the south-wing renovation before contracts were signed. Because someone photographed your sister’s children at the Connecticut property.”
Those incidents were real. Dominic had investigated each and found no common source.
“Arthur said Clara was being paid through the missing payroll money,” Renata continued. “He showed me transfers.”
“Fabricated?”
“I do not know.”
“You took her key.”
“Yes.”
“You searched her locker.”
“Yes.”
“You found the watch.”
“Yes.”
“You prepared to fire her before it was officially reported missing.”
“Arthur said delay would allow Dominic to remove evidence.”
“And Emma?”
Renata’s eyes shifted.
“What did you do to her?” Lorenzo asked.
“I found her in the linen room. She had climbed the rolling ladder for the rabbit. I took it because she would not come down. I told her toys were not allowed.”
“You hid it.”
“I put it on a shelf.”
“You chased her outside.”
“I followed her. She ran. I was trying to bring her back.”
“With Clara’s key in your fist.”
“I had just removed it from the ring.”
“Why?”
“Arthur told me the duplicate should not remain in the office.”
Mara folded her arms. “Did Arthur tell you Emma saw the search?”
Renata nodded once.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He said, ‘Handle the child before she repeats something she doesn’t understand.’”
The sentence hung in the room.
Lorenzo’s hands remained at his sides. Renata watched them.
“What did you think he meant?” Mara asked.
“To calm her. To keep her away from the staff.”
“Did you believe Emma was in danger?”
“No.”
“Do you believe it now?”
Renata’s control finally broke. Her lower lip trembled, and she turned her face away with visible disgust at herself.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Lorenzo walked out before anger chose a shape he would regret.
He found Dominic in the library examining printed access logs. The security chief listened without interruption as Lorenzo repeated Renata’s claim that Dominic had been the intended target.
When Lorenzo finished, Dominic removed his glasses and cleaned them with the end of his tie.
“Well?” Lorenzo asked.
“It’s plausible.”
“That you were selling information?”
“That Arthur convinced her.”
“You don’t sound insulted.”
“I’m paid to understand threats, not take them personally.”
“Are you selling information?”
Dominic put his glasses back on. “No.”
Lorenzo waited.
Dominic met his gaze. “If you need a performance, I can become offended.”
“I need the truth.”
“You need control. Truth is less obedient.”
The words would have ended another man’s career. Dominic knew that and said them anyway.
Lorenzo sat across from him. “Arthur used your account.”
“Yes.”
“He built a story around you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you would believe I was capable of it.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Dominic leaned back. “Your father hired me after I left the department. He wanted a former cop with debt and a damaged reputation because loyalty is cheaper when a man has fewer options. Arthur knows my history. Renata knows pieces of it. You know all of it.”
“You took money from an evidence locker.”
“Twenty-one years ago. I returned it before anyone noticed, then confessed when an internal audit began because I was too frightened to wait. I lost my badge and nearly my marriage. Your father called that useful experience.”
“He trusted you.”
“Your father trusted leverage.”
Rain dragged thin lines down the library windows.
Lorenzo remembered Dominic teaching him to drive in an empty stadium parking lot. His father had been too impatient. Renata had packed sandwiches. Arthur, younger and thinner then, had sat in the back seat with a road atlas and complained whenever Lorenzo braked too hard. The four of them had once seemed like permanent fixtures around a boy who mistook usefulness for love.
“Did Arthur know about the federal subpoenas?” Lorenzo asked.
“He reviewed the legal bills.”
“The vendors?”
“He approved them.”
“The photographs in Connecticut?”
“He hired the private firm that investigated.”
Dominic tapped the paper. “He didn’t need a leak. He was the leak.”
“To whom?”
“That’s the larger question.”
Mara entered with one of her technicians. “The flash drive from the linen closet is encrypted, but the metadata gives us something. It was first connected to a Duca office computer six months ago.”
“Which computer?” Lorenzo asked.
“Arthur’s.”
Dominic let out a breath.
Mara continued. “That doesn’t prove he placed it in the closet. It proves the drive was used in his office. We also found a partial print inside the cashbox that does not belong to Renata.”
“Arthur?”
“Comparison pending.”
Lorenzo stood. “Find him.”
Mara’s expression hardened. “Lawfully.”
“He threatened a child.”
“He told Renata to handle a child. We do not yet know his intent.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know enough to be dangerous.”
Dominic gathered the access logs into a neat stack. “She’s right.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
Dominic did not soften it. “If Arthur believes you are hunting him, he disappears or does something desperate. If he believes the plan is still partly intact, he may contact Renata or return for whatever he thinks remains in the house.”
May you like
“What remains?”
The technician spoke for the first time. “Possibly the original payroll ledger. Clara had photographs, but not the underlying file. The flash drive may contain it.”
