Chương 10
She frowned.
“They were prepared to let me stay if I made a statement separating the company from Damian and Mother.”
“That sounds normal.”
“It did.”
“But?”
“They also wanted me to say there was no evidence of institutional involvement in Sophia’s death.”
“Is there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you can’t say that.”
“I know.”
Elena looked at him.
Adrian gave a tired smile.
“I hate how surprised you look every time I learn something.”
“I’m adjusting.”
“Fair.”
Two days later, Connecticut investigators interviewed Peter Rawlins.
He called Elena afterward.
“I hate you.”
She closed her eyes.
“How bad?”
“Four hours.”
“Did you tell them the truth?”
“Most of it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m seventy years old and still capable of making myself sound better than I was.”
Elena waited.
Peter sighed.
“I told them Victoria ordered deletion. I told them I copied the files first. I told them she moved up my retirement and gave me a payment through a consulting agreement.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand.”
Elena sat down.
“That’s a lot.”
“It felt like more seven years ago.”
“Why did you take it?”
“Because Joan needed surgery. Because I had a mortgage. Because I was angry. Because I told myself the footage wouldn’t bring Sophia back. Pick whichever answer makes me easiest to forgive.”
“I’m not deciding whether to forgive you.”
“Good.”
“Did you give investigators anything else?”
Silence.
“Peter?”
“There’s another copy.”
Elena stood.
“What?”
“Not video.”
“What?”
“Audio.”
Her stomach tightened.
“From where?”
“The security office intercom system.”
“You told me there was no audio.”
“On the cameras.”
“You knew this whole time?”
“No. I found it after you called me the first time.”
“Peter.”
“I know.”
“You let me walk into that house with half the evidence.”
“I told you not to confront them.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.”
“Yes.”
The word stopped her.
Peter continued.
“That is the part I don’t get to argue with.”
Elena pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You haven’t listened?”
“I listened to thirty seconds.”
“And?”
“Victoria.”
“Saying what?”
Peter’s voice lowered.
“Telling me to clear the terrace recording before police asked for it.”
Elena sat again.
“Have investigators heard it?”
“Yes.”
Relief arrived first.
Then anger.
“Why are you telling me now?”
“Because they’re going to ask Adrian about something.”
“What?”
“Sophia’s phone.”
Elena remembered Victoria picking it up from the wet stone.
“What about it?”
“It disappeared.”
The phone had never been listed among Sophia’s personal effects returned to the family.
Adrian had assumed police took it.
Police records showed they had not.
Victoria claimed she gave it to Peter.
Peter denied receiving it.
Damian claimed not to know.
For the next week, that missing phone became the object around which every version of the past bent.
Investigators searched retained family storage with consent negotiated through attorneys.
Nothing.
They reviewed Sophia’s cloud records.
Partial backups existed, but the final hours were incomplete.
They interviewed former staff.
A housekeeper remembered Victoria carrying something small from the terrace.
A driver remembered Damian demanding a car around three in the morning and then being told by Victoria to stay.
A former assistant remembered being asked to cancel Sophia’s meetings before the hospital publicly announced her death.
None of it alone proved what had happened.
Together it made the old accident look less and less accidental.
Damian’s defense shifted.
He stopped denying the confrontation.
His attorney instead described Sophia’s fall as a tragic outcome of a mutual physical argument between intoxicated siblings.
That wording enraged Adrian.
Elena found him in the penthouse gym after midnight hitting a heavy bag without gloves.
His knuckles were red.
“Stop.”
He hit it again.
“Adrian.”
Another punch.
She walked over and unplugged the smart display that tracked the workout.
He stared at her.
“That doesn’t turn off the bag.”
“I know.”
He almost smiled.
Then looked at his hands.
“They’re making her responsible.”
“They’re making a defense.”
“She’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“She can’t answer.”
“No.”
He leaned his forehead against the bag.
Elena stood beside him.
After a while, he said, “I used to think Damian was jealous of me.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
“Were you jealous of him?”
Adrian looked at her.
She shrugged.
“You had three siblings in that house. According to your mother, only two counted after Sophia died. I’m asking.”
He wiped sweat from his face with his shirt.
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“He could fail.”
Elena waited.
Adrian laughed quietly.
“Sounds stupid.”
“No.”
“Dad expected me to be him. Damian could drop out of business school, date actresses, lose money on restaurants. Everyone complained, but it was Damian being Damian.”
“And Sophia?”
“She could see all of it.”
“All of what?”
“That I liked being the responsible one.”
Elena looked at him.
“I did. I hated it, but I liked being the person everyone called.”
He sat on the bench.
“When she died, I made it worse.”
“How?”
“I decided I would hold everything together because that was what she would expect.”
“Did she?”
“I have no idea.”
He rubbed his knuckles.
“Maybe she would’ve told me to stop being such an ass.”
“That seems possible.”
He smiled.
“She liked you, by the way.”
Elena frowned.
“You told me I never met her.”
“You didn’t.”
“Then how could she like me?”
“She couldn’t. I’m tired.”
Elena laughed.
Adrian looked up.
For the first time in more than a week, they both laughed at the same thing.
It lasted perhaps five seconds.
It felt enormous.
Then Elena looked at his hands.
“You need ice.”
“I need a new family.”
“You’re getting a daughter.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
Elena had not meant the sentence as comfort.
But it became something else between them.
He looked at her stomach.
“Can I?”
She knew what he meant.
For nearly ten days she had flinched whenever he reached toward her unexpectedly.
He had stopped reaching.
May you like
Now he asked.
Elena took his hand and placed it against the side of her belly.
