Chương 8
Banks required authorization or legal process.
The foundation board retained independent counsel and instructed Richard, Olivia, and Victoria not to access certain records.
Richard stepped aside from two committees but remained chief executive of Hayes Meridian.
Olivia remained on administrative leave.
The gossip coverage faded because a celebrity divorce produced better photographs.
Victoria moved into a hotel under her own name and paid with a personal account Richard could not freeze.
She spent her mornings with lawyers and her afternoons doing very little.
That last part was harder.
She walked.
She watched television with the sound off.
She ordered room-service soup and forgot to eat it.
She bought a cheap notebook from a drugstore because Nathan told her not to keep investigative notes on her phone.
The first page remained blank for a day.
Then she wrote:
I believed Richard because believing him required less from me.
She stared at the sentence.
Under it she wrote:
That does not make him innocent.
Then:
That does not make me innocent either.
On the twelfth day, Olivia called.
“Can you meet me?”
“Where?”
“Somewhere without marble.”
They met at a diner off the interstate.
Olivia wore jeans.
Victoria had never seen her in jeans.
“You look weird.”
“So do you.”
“I always look like this.”
“That’s the problem.”
They ordered coffee.
Olivia folded the paper wrapper from her straw into increasingly smaller rectangles.
“Nathan found Matthew Creel.”
Victoria sat forward.
“The witness.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. Nathan won’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“Because he says witnesses contaminate other witnesses.”
“He’s becoming worse.”
“I’m starting to like him.”
“Traitor.”
Olivia smiled briefly.
Then looked at the table.
“I need to tell you something.”
Victoria waited.
“In 2016, Daniel came to me.”
The diner noises seemed to recede.
“When?”
“April.”
“After the trust?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“Copies of acquisition records.”
Victoria stared at her.
“Did you give them to him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Richard had told us Daniel was trying to access company systems while impaired.”
“Was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You could tell if he was high.”
“Not always.”
“Olivia.”
“I didn’t give him the records.”
Victoria felt anger rise so quickly it almost steadied her.
“You knew he was investigating.”
“I knew he thought he was.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“You weren’t speaking to him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Olivia’s jaw tightened.
“No. I never told you.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought Richard was protecting the company.”
“From Daniel.”
“Yes.”
Victoria pushed her coffee away.
“What did Daniel say?”
Olivia looked toward the window.
“He said there were two sets of numbers on art purchases. He said someone was using the foundation to move money.”
“And you didn’t check?”
“I checked.”
Victoria froze.
Olivia continued.
“I found discrepancies.”
“What?”
“Small ones at first. Shipping. Insurance. Appraisal fees.”
“You found them.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I took them to Richard.”
Victoria laughed once.
Olivia flinched.
“What did he say?”
“That Daniel had been going through preliminary files and misunderstanding internal allocations. He showed me reconciliations.”
“Were they real?”
“I thought so.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
Victoria stood.
Olivia said, “Please sit down.”
“No.”
“Victoria.”
“My brother came to both of us.”
“Yes.”
“We both sent him away.”
“Yes.”
The simple agreement took the force out of her anger.
Victoria stood beside the table, not knowing what to do with her hands.
Olivia’s eyes were wet.
“He asked me one more thing.”
“What?”
“He asked if the Varela had ever been removed from the gallery.”
Victoria slowly sat.
“When?”
“Same conversation.”
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Did you tell him?”
“I told him it had been taken down for conservation after Samuel’s stroke.”
“By who?”
“An outside crew.”
“Who authorized it?”
Olivia looked at her.
“Richard.”
That became the first fair clue that the documents behind the painting had been there for years rather than hidden recently.
The second came from Matthew Creel.
Nathan met Victoria in his office three days later.
Matthew had confirmed that the signature on the 2016 trust restatement resembled his.
He had also confirmed he was in Colorado on the date the document claimed he witnessed Samuel sign.
“Can he prove it?” Victoria asked.
“Flight records. Employment records. A lease. Probably.”
“Then it’s forged.”
Nathan held up a hand.
“His witness signature appears false.”
“That’s forgery.”
“We will let the appropriate people decide what it is.”
“You really enjoy this.”
“No.”
“You sound happy.”
“I sound careful.”
Matthew also remembered Richard’s office asking him, months after he left, for copies of his old signature pages from routine corporate documents.
He had not thought much of it.
Richard’s assistant said they were cleaning archived files.
“Who was the assistant?” Victoria asked.
Nathan hesitated.
“Evan Rusk.”
Victoria knew the name from the phone message.
Not because she had read it that night.
Because Richard had said it during the gallery confrontation before Olivia entered.
Evan, move the—
He had stopped when the glass fell.
She had forgotten until now.
“Evan texted him.”
Nathan looked at her.
“You don’t know that.”
“I think he did.”
“Write down exactly what you remember. Not what you conclude.”
She wanted to throw his notebook at him.
Instead she wrote.
Evan Rusk had worked for Richard for almost twenty-five years.
He was not a sinister man.
That disappointed Victoria when she finally met him.
He was sixty-one, overweight, recently divorced, and had the apologetic habit of checking his blood sugar during meetings. He wore reading glasses on a cord and kept sugar-free mints in his jacket pocket.
Independent counsel interviewed him with Victoria absent.
What emerged afterward was less cinematic and more damaging.
Evan had managed Richard’s private administrative files.
He had also coordinated the movement of documents between the estate, family office, and outside storage.
He admitted sending the text about the Varela.
The full message was recovered from his phone.
May you like
Richard—
The Varela originals have to disappear tonight if we’re doing this. Olivia’s review starts tomorrow. She cannot see them with the Mercer copies. Tell me before 10. I’m not touching anything without you confirming in writing.
