Chương 3
“She asked whether I'd told you.”
Adrian looked down.
“I said no.”
The room changed again.
The monitor kept sounding.
Claire stared at him.
“She wanted to know if you knew.”
“Yes.”
“And tonight she tried to put me down the stairs.”
He did not answer.
“Say it.”
“I don't know yet.”
“You saw her.”
“I saw the tray. I saw you fall.”
“You heard what I told you she said?”
“Yes.”
“You don't believe me?”
His face snapped toward hers.
“Don't do that.”
“What?”
“Turn this into whether I believe you.”
“What else is it?”
“It is me trying very hard not to decide what happened before the police, your doctor, and probably six lawyers tell us what can actually be proved.”
Claire laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“There he is.”
“Claire.”
“The man who waits until something becomes admissible before he has a feeling.”
His expression tightened.
“That isn't fair.”
“No. It isn't.”
She turned away.
Adrian sat silent for several minutes.
Then he said, “I believe you.”
She closed her eyes.
“I just don't know what believing you is going to cost yet.”
Claire looked at him again.
That was more honest.
It was also worse.
At three in the morning, a nurse brought Adrian terrible coffee in a foam cup.
He drank it anyway.
Claire watched him and said, “You hate hospital coffee.”
“I hate all coffee after midnight.”
“You said once coffee after midnight was proof civilization had failed.”
“That sounds excessive.”
“You said it at O'Hare.”
“O'Hare changes a man.”
She smiled despite herself.
The smile disappeared quickly, but for a moment the room belonged to ordinary married people again.
Then Adrian's phone lit up for the twentieth time.
He turned it facedown.
“Board?”
“Everybody.”
“Victoria?”
“No.”
“Her lawyer?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
Claire watched him.
“What does he want?”
“For me not to make public statements.”
“Were you planning to?”
“No.”
“Then why does he care?”
“Because someone called one of the guests from dinner.”
Claire stared at him.
“What guests?”
He looked tired enough to forget she had not seen downstairs before the fall.
“The audit committee was there.”
“What audit committee?”
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
The silence lasted too long.
Claire felt something sink inside her.
“Adrian.”
“I was going to tell you tomorrow.”
“That sentence has never improved anything.”
“There is an internal review happening at Cole Meridian.”
“Of what?”
“Vendor payments.”
“And Victoria?”
He looked toward the door.
That was answer enough.
Claire pushed herself slightly higher against the pillows.
A dull pain traveled across her shoulder.
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
“You've been investigating Victoria for six weeks?”
“Not Victoria personally.”
“Don't do corporate English with me.”
He breathed out.
“Transactions she approved.”
“What kind of transactions?”
“Consulting invoices. Mostly.”
“Fake?”
“We don't know.”
“But suspicious enough for an audit committee to eat dinner in our house.”
“It wasn't supposed to be a formal meeting.”
“What was it supposed to be?”
“A conversation.”
“At a twelve-foot table with outside counsel?”
His eyes narrowed faintly.
“You saw them?”
“I looked over the railing before she kicked the tray.”
Adrian said nothing.
Claire stared at him.
“You were going to confront her tonight.”
“I was going to ask her to take administrative leave.”
“And you didn't tell me.”
“I didn't want you involved.”
“She was giving me pills in our kitchen.”
His face changed.
That landed.
Claire looked away.
“So whether you wanted me involved didn't really matter.”
“No.”
“Did she know?”
“That we were looking at the payments?”
“She knew questions had been raised.”
“Did she know tonight was about her?”
“I don't know.”
Claire thought about Victoria's face that afternoon when she mentioned stopping the pills.
Not panic.
Not yet.
But attention.
Too much attention.
“Why would your company problems make her want to hurt me?”
Adrian leaned back.
“I don't know.”
“Do you think she hates me?”
“No.”
“That sounded fast.”
“Victoria doesn't hate you.”
“How comforting.”
“She resents change.”
Claire looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He stared at the coffee cup in his hand.
“Before you and I got married, Victoria and I worked almost every day together for fifteen years. She was there when the company had thirty employees. She was there when we couldn't make payroll without moving money between accounts. She negotiated the first institutional investment. She dealt with my father when I refused to.”
“You've told me this.”
“I haven't told you what happened when I started stepping back.”
Claire waited.
“She took it personally.”
“Because you got married?”
“Because I stopped treating the company as the only important thing in my life.”
There it was.
Not romance.
Ownership.
Claire remembered Victoria appearing unannounced during their honeymoon because a lender had changed terms on a deal.
Adrian had taken the call.
He had apologized afterward.
Claire had pretended not to care because she did not want to become the younger wife who complained about the powerful woman who had known her husband longer.
A year later, when Claire had miscarried their first pregnancy, Victoria had sent flowers but still called Adrian from Singapore during the procedure because a financing agreement needed approval.
Claire had never forgiven that.
She had never admitted she had not forgiven it either.
“What did you do when she took it personally?” Claire asked.
“Nothing useful.”
“What does that mean?”
“I told her things would settle.”
“Did they?”
“No.”
“Did you set boundaries?”
Adrian gave a tired half laugh.
“I thought I did.”
“Did she think you did?”
He did not answer.
Claire looked back at the monitor.
“That's what I thought.”
The police interviewed her before dawn.
The detective was a woman named Maya Chen who wore a charcoal blazer over a pale gray shirt and carried no visible patience for wealthy households.
Claire liked her almost immediately.
Chen did not call it attempted murder.
She did not call the pills poison.
May you like
She asked Claire to explain exactly what happened without using conclusions.
Where was she standing?
