Part 3
Isobel reached for her wine.
Mara said, “Look at me.”
Julian did not.
“Did you send the files?”
“No.”
“Did you know they existed?”
A pause.
“I knew there were drafts.”
“Did you know the final reports had been altered?”
“Not until after the accident.”
The room seemed to contract.
Isobel’s lawyer stepped in again. “Mr. Strathairn, you should not answer further questions.”
Julian gave a short laugh without humor. “You always say that after the useful answer.”
Isobel’s fingers tightened around the glass.
Mara walked slowly along the side of the table. The scratch at her temple stung now that the first numbness had faded. She could feel a small warm line beneath her hair.
When she reached the place where the stopper should have fallen, she stopped.
A shallow chip marked the rim of a side plate. Beside it lay a tiny piece of clear crystal.
She photographed both.
Isobel watched her. “Do you intend to turn this into a crime scene?”
“I intend not to let it disappear.”
“You have always had a flair for implying ugliness without accepting responsibility for saying it plainly.”
Mara looked up. “All right. Plainly, then. Someone threw a crystal stopper at me after you ordered this table to remain silent about records connected to two deaths.”
“I did not order silence about deaths.”
“What did you order silence about?”
“The acquisition.”
“Why use Dunrath’s name?”
“I did not.”
Julian spoke without lifting his head. “You did.”
His mother’s gaze settled on him.
Mara had seen Isobel angry before. It never looked like anger. Her face became gentler, almost maternal, while the person beneath it withdrew to some colder place.
“Julian,” she said, “you are distressed.”
He pressed his thumb against the edge of his plate.
“You said,” he replied, “that no one was to discuss Dunrath, the correspondence, or the families until the Calder transaction was complete.”
“That is not an order to conceal anything.”
“What would you call it?”
“Advice. Given in a private home before a private announcement.”
“You told Malcolm his refinancing would be reconsidered if he spoke.”
Malcolm’s head came up.
Isobel looked toward him. “Sir Malcolm?”
The banker’s mouth opened. He glanced at Adrian, then at the lawyers, then at Mara’s bloodied fingertips.
“I understood,” he said carefully, “that discretion was expected.”
“Were you threatened?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
Isobel smiled again, but the expression lacked its earlier ease. “There. We are manufacturing coercion from etiquette.”
Malcolm swallowed. “She did mention the refinancing.”
The lawyer beside Isobel sat down.
Outside, one of the vehicle engines shut off. The sound reached the room as a low mechanical sigh beneath the rain.
Adrian looked at his daughter. “Do you have the files with you?”
“No.”
“Where are they?”
“In three places.”
It was not entirely true. They were in four.
Her father studied her for a moment. “Good.”
The approval irritated her more than it should have.
“You don’t know what they contain,” she said.
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
He lowered his voice. “Then tell me.”
Mara looked down the table at the faces arranged beneath the chandelier. Some of them had advised her since she left university. Malcolm had sent flowers when her mother died. The retired judge had taught her to cast a fly on the river when she was thirteen. Julian had once waited with her for six hours outside a hospital room because she could not bear to sit alone.
Now none of them could meet her eyes for long.
“The acquisition places Dunrath’s liabilities inside Calder Marine’s infrastructure division,” she said. “The indemnity schedule limits recovery from Strathairn Holdings if the accident is reopened.”
Adrian’s expression did not change.
Mara felt the next words before she spoke them.
“You knew about the indemnity.”
Silence answered for him.
She had not been certain until then.
His jaw shifted.
Isobel leaned back. For the first time that evening, she looked comfortable.
Mara turned fully toward her father. “You approved it.”
“I approved a negotiated liability cap.”
“Why?”
“Because the assets were undervalued and because every acquisition includes risk.”
“Not undisclosed risk.”
“The reports I saw did not establish misconduct.”
“The reports you chose to see.”
His voice hardened. “Be careful.”
“Why? Because there are witnesses?”
“Because certainty is not the same thing as evidence.”
She almost laughed. The sentence was one he had used when she was seventeen and accused a housekeeper of stealing her mother’s bracelet. Mara had been certain then too. Two days later, she found the bracelet inside her own riding boot.
Adrian had never let her forget it.
Now he was asking her to doubt herself in a room where the evidence had already been removed from the table.
“I was careful,” she said. “That’s why I asked you to come.”
“You could have called me.”
“Your office forwarded my last private call to legal.”
“That was a secure conference.”
“It included three men I didn’t know.”
“They work for us.”
“They work for you.”
His eyes tightened.
Mara hated the small satisfaction she felt at wounding him. It was childish and immediate, and it embarrassed her even while it happened.
She looked away first.
Near the service door, Mr. Kerr shifted his weight. His left hand was no longer behind his back. Something silver showed between his fingers.
Mara saw it.
So did one of Adrian’s aides.
The aide took a step, but Mara moved sooner.
“Mr. Kerr.”
The butler froze.
“What are you holding?”
His face drained of color.
Isobel did not turn around. “Kerr, leave us.”
“No,” Mara said. “Please put it on the table.”
He stood motionless for another second. Then he opened his hand.
The crystal stopper lay in his palm, its faceted sides reflecting the candles. The silver base was scratched near one edge.
Adrian’s voice became very quiet. “Why did you take it?”
Mr. Kerr looked at Isobel.
She remained facing forward.
May you like
“I was clearing a hazard, sir.”
“No one asked you to clear the table.”
