Chương 5
“My aunt called the police?”
“Victor did.”
“You’re sure?”
“He introduced himself.”
Elena folded her arms.
“What did you do?”
“Left.”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
He rubbed his palms together.
“I drank.”
The hallway seemed suddenly too bright.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Violence?”
“A bar fight. One arrest. Charges dropped.”
“Work?”
“Mostly construction. Some trucking. I got fired a lot.”
“And this is the part you thought I should hear at my wedding?”
“No.”
“Then why come?”
Thomas looked at her for a long moment.
“Because Victor told me Damien knew.”
Her skin prickled.
“Knew what?”
“That I was alive.”
“He did.”
“No. I mean before six weeks ago.”
Elena stared.
“How long?”
Thomas reached into his jacket.
She flinched.
He saw it.
Slowly, he pulled out nothing more dangerous than a folded piece of paper.
“I don’t know.”
She took it.
It was a photocopy of an email dated fourteen months earlier.
From Victor Cross to an address Elena recognized as Damien’s private account.
Subject: VALE MATTER.
One line was visible beneath it.
If he resurfaces, do not engage Elena until we have assessed exposure.
Elena read it twice.
Then a third time.
“Where did you get this?”
“Victor.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He printed a folder for our meeting. Left it on the conference table when he went out to take a call. I photographed a few pages.”
“You stole it.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would he have this printed?”
“Because men his age like paper when they’re scared.”
Despite herself, Elena almost smiled.
She hated that too.
“What does exposure mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You came here accusing him without knowing?”
“I know what he did to me.”
“That isn’t the same as knowing what Damien knows.”
“No.”
She handed the page back.
“Then don’t make it the same.”
Thomas folded it.
“Fair.”
She hated how often he said that.
It sounded like a man accepting a sentence.
“Did you steal from my trust?”
He looked at her.
“I signed transfers.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
“Then why plead guilty?”
He was quiet.
“Because I was stupid.”
“Also not an answer.”
“No.”
His mouth pressed into a line.
“Claire had been dead five months. I was drinking. I owed money. I signed documents Victor put in front of me because he said they were estate expenses. My signature went on three transfers. Money left your trust. Some went into an account with my name attached.”
“Did you receive it?”
“Eighteen thousand.”
Her stomach turned.
“You just said you didn’t steal.”
“I didn’t know the money came from your trust when I took it.”
“You took eighteen thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“To pay debt.”
“What debt?”
He looked embarrassed.
“Sports betting.”
Elena stared at him.
Finally, something about the story felt ugly enough to be true.
“And you were raising a five-year-old.”
“Yes.”
“You were gambling.”
“Yes.”
“My mother had just died.”
“Yes.”
She wanted him to defend himself.
He did not.
The absence of defense made anger harder to hold cleanly.
“I need you to leave.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
“I don’t know when I’ll talk to you again.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t get to show up tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get to send me ten emails.”
“I won’t.”
“And if you go to the press—”
“I won’t.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
Thomas picked up his coffee.
“You’re not.”
He stood.
He was taller than Damien by an inch.
Taller than Elena remembered her father being in the half-formed memories she was no longer certain she trusted.
He walked toward the loading dock.
“Thomas.”
He stopped.
She hated the way he turned immediately again.
“Where are you staying?”
“River Bend Motel.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It is.”
“Of course it is.”
A faint smile touched his face.
Not charming.
Just tired.
“Good night, Elena.”
She watched the loading door close behind him.
When she returned upstairs, Damien was waiting in the suite.
His bow tie was gone.
His shirt collar was open.
The wedding ring on his left hand looked startlingly new.
Elena stared at it.
So did he.
“I didn’t know everything,” he said.
She closed the door.
“That is a very specific sentence.”
“I knew my father had dealt with someone claiming to be Thomas Vale.”
“Fourteen months ago.”
Damien’s eyes changed.
“He showed you the email.”
“Thomas showed me a photograph of it.”
“He took that from my father’s office?”
“Yes.”
Damien laughed once without humor.
“And you believe him.”
“I believe the email exists unless you tell me it doesn’t.”
Damien looked away.
She waited.
“It exists.”
“Why?”
“My father said a man had contacted one of the family offices asking about you.”
“And?”
“He said the man was dangerous.”
“Did he say alive?”
Damien rubbed his forehead.
“Yes.”
The room tilted in a way it had not when Thomas first opened the past.
“You knew.”
“I knew a man named Thomas Vale was alive.”
“My father.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You knew the name.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I had been told my father was named Thomas Vale.”
“You rarely talked about him.”
Elena laughed.
It came out sharp.
“I was five when he died.”
“I know.”
“Apparently everyone knows things tonight.”
Damien walked toward her.
She stepped back.
He stopped.
That hurt him.
She saw it.
Some part of her was glad.
Another part despised that part.
“My father told me Thomas was using your dead father’s identity.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To get access to you. Money.”
“And you believed that.”
“Yes.”
“Without asking me.”
“I did not want this dropped into your life before the wedding.”
Elena looked around at the roses, the gift boxes, the embroidered robe laid across the bed.
“You keep saying before the wedding like that explains something.”
“It explains timing.”
“No. It explains your priority.”
He stared at her.
“What was my priority?”
“Getting through today.”
“That mattered.”
May you like
“More than whether my father was alive.”
“I didn’t know he was your father.”
