Chương 7
“Margaret?”
“She takes coffee. Apparently lawyers do that.”
Declan ignored the tone. “Did Thomas carry anything?”
“Sometimes a cup. Sometimes a folder. Once a small paper bag.”
“What was in it?”
“The camera is outside the room, Mr. Hale.”
“Who else came after Sarah filled her bottle?”
“We are reviewing hours of footage. You will not help by guessing.”
“What can I do?”
“Tell me everything about Aster.”
He brought her to an unused office and explained the vendor records, the Calder shipment, the annual renewals, and Thomas’s involvement. Margaret joined them despite Moreno’s visible reluctance.
When Declan mentioned the eleven-year history, Margaret interrupted.
“That predates his review of the company.”
Moreno looked at her. “Does it predate yours?”
“No.”
“Do you know what Aster does?”
“It provides emergency environmental and logistics services.”
“Where?”
“Where required.”
“That answer would make an excellent company brochure.”
Margaret’s eyes cooled. “Aster was created after a major spill threatened Hale Maritime’s insurance coverage. Rather than rely on multiple contractors, the company consolidated response capability.”
“Who owns it?”
“A holding company.”
“Owned by?”
“I would need to review the corporate records.”
Declan looked at her. “You drafted the first agreement.”
Margaret did not turn.
“I reviewed it,” she said.
“Who owns Aster?”
“A Delaware entity called North Channel Holdings.”
“Who owns North Channel?”
“I do not know.”
Moreno wrote the name down.
Declan said, “Thomas knows.”
Margaret’s fingers tightened around her pen.
Moreno noticed.
“So do you,” the detective said.
“I know that Aster was vetted by outside counsel.”
“That was not the question.”
Margaret closed her legal pad. “I am here to protect the company’s rights.”
“Someone poisoned a pregnant woman.”
“And if you build a case by violating privilege, the person responsible may walk away.”
Moreno leaned back. “Privilege protects legal advice. It does not protect poison.”
The two women held each other’s gaze.
Declan thought of Sarah telling him not to turn her life into a decision he could make faster than she could. He had spent years admiring Margaret because she never confused emotion with strategy. Now he wondered how often strategy had been emotion wearing better clothes.
At noon, Sarah’s condition worsened.
Her heart rhythm became unstable, and the medical team moved her to intensive care for closer monitoring. The obstetric specialist explained that the fetus still had cardiac activity, but Sarah’s body was under severe stress. No one offered predictions.
Elaine sat in a corner of the family waiting room folding and unfolding a parking receipt.
Declan stayed across from her.
“You told the board,” she said.
He did not ask how she knew.
“Yes.”
“Sarah asked you not to.”
“Yes.”
Elaine folded the receipt into a smaller square. “Did you apologize?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“That was not the question.”
“No.”
“She will be angry.”
“She should be.”
Elaine looked at him. “Do not enjoy being punished. It is another way of making the situation about you.”
He absorbed that in silence.
A nurse brought them two cups of tea. Elaine thanked her, waited until she left, then pushed one cup toward Declan.
“I don’t drink tea,” he said.
“Today you do.”
The tea tasted faintly of paper.
Elaine watched the rain soften against the windows. “When Sarah was nine, she decided she was going to become a veterinarian. She fainted the first time she saw blood and spent the rest of the afternoon insisting she had only tripped.”
Declan held the warm cup between his hands.
“She does that.”
“What?”
“Turns fear into competence.”
“She learned it early.”
“From you?”
Elaine smiled without humor. “From needing to.”
She did not explain, and he did not ask.
At one thirty, the analysis of Sarah’s bottle came back positive for thallium contamination. The concentration suggested the bottle had been deliberately dosed more than once, though the laboratory could not determine who had done it or exactly when.
Moreno delivered the news in person.
“Mr. Callahan’s attorney has arrived,” she added. “He is no longer speaking voluntarily.”
“Did you arrest him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because entering a break room is not enough. The camera does not show what happened inside. We have no recovered source, no purchase record, no witness to the act, and no admission.”
“He disabled the camera.”
“He authorized maintenance. The technician says the camera had been failing. The work order may have been legitimate.”
“What about his paper bag?”
“A breakfast sandwich and medication from a pharmacy.”
Declan looked away.
Moreno said, “Your certainty is not evidence.”
“What happens now?”
“We trace access to the bottle and the poison. We review records. We interview staff. We examine motive.”
“You have motive.”
“We have your theory.”
Sarah’s phone vibrated on the chair beside Elaine. A message preview appeared from an unknown number.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE HARBOR ALONE.
Elaine saw it first.
Declan reached for the phone, then stopped before touching it.
Moreno photographed the screen.
“Do not open it,” she said.
Another message arrived.
THE CHILD DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT SHE STOLE.
Declan’s vision narrowed.
Elaine stood so quickly her tea spilled.
Moreno took the phone in a gloved evidence bag and called a cybercrime investigator. She asked Sarah’s permission through the nurse before accessing the device. Sarah, barely awake, gave it.
The messages had been sent through a masked internet service. The account was newly created. The language was threatening but revealed no information unavailable to anyone who had heard hospital gossip or contacted the office.
The pregnancy had leaked in less than four hours.
By two, a financial reporter left a voicemail for Margaret asking whether Hale Maritime’s chief executive had fathered a child with an employee now hospitalized after a “workplace incident.”
The board’s confidentiality had lasted approximately ninety minutes.
Margaret moved into crisis mode. She drafted a holding statement acknowledging a medical emergency, denying knowledge of criminal conduct, and refusing comment on private health information.
Declan read it once.
May you like
“It sounds as though we’re denying she was poisoned.”
“We are not confirming unverified allegations.”
