Chương 5
A brief pause.
“What else?”
“He told her I knew her laptop was logged into my account and deliberately let the transfer happen.”
“That is not what happened.”
“I know.”
“And you have documentation showing when you notified the bank.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t argue with her by text.”
“She also says Richard told her I want the company.”
Naomi went quiet.
I knew that silence now.
It was the silence she used when one new fact changed the shape of several older ones.
“What?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Naomi.”
“Claire, I need you to send me screenshots of those messages.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard is creating a narrative.”
“That I sabotaged my own account?”
“That you engineered a liquidity crisis to force control of Cole Family Catering.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense tonight.”
Her voice stayed calm.
“It only has to be repeated enough that people start wondering.”
I looked toward the television.
A baseball player was walking back to the dugout after striking out.
Nobody in Tessa’s living room cared.
The crowd on the screen cared enormously.
“How could he say I want the company?”
“You own no shares, correct?”
“Correct.”
“You have guarantee rights and certain protections tied to the loan agreements, but that isn’t ownership.”
“So he’s lying.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the word landed harder than I expected.
Naomi continued.
“Do not call him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“That pause tells me you were thinking about it.”
“I wanted to hear him say it.”
“That would make you feel better for about thirty seconds.”
“Maybe forty.”
“Still not worth it.”
I sent the screenshots.
Madison kept typing.
I did not answer.
At nine oh three, she called.
I watched her name flash.
Tessa sat across from me with one knee tucked beneath her.
“You can let it ring.”
“I know.”
“Knowing and doing are different sports.”
The call ended.
Madison called again.
On the third call, I answered.
“What?”
She inhaled sharply.
“You answered.”
“You called three times.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Her voice sounded younger than twenty-three.
Not innocent.
Just younger.
Behind her I heard a door shut and then the hollow quiet of a large room.
“Where are you?”
She ignored the question.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About my computer.”
“I knew the transfer request originated from a device connected to you.”
“You knew before today?”
“Yes.”
She made a small sound.
“You let me come to the reunion.”
“I didn’t know what you knew or what you did.”
“You could have asked me.”
“You could have asked before scheduling an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar transfer from an account that wasn’t yours.”
Silence.
Tessa looked away.
I regretted the line immediately, not because it was false, but because I had delivered it too cleanly.
Too much like the kind of sentence people save for later.
Madison’s voice changed.
“I didn’t schedule it.”
I sat straighter.
“What?”
“I didn’t schedule anything.”
“Your laptop was used.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Dad told me.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
I stood and walked toward the guest room.
Tessa did not follow.
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“He said the bank thinks it came from my laptop because I was logged into the family office system.”
“What family office system?”
“The catering dashboard.”
“You had access?”
“Dad gave me access.”
“For what?”
“I help with invoices sometimes.”
“You’ve never worked for the company.”
“I don’t work there.”
Her defensiveness returned.
“I help.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
“I know that.”
“Did you ever have access to my investment account?”
“No.”
Too fast again.
I closed the guest room door.
“Madison.”
“What?”
“Did you ever see my access codes?”
Silence.
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“Madison.”
“I saw something.”
“What?”
“Pictures.”
My knees weakened enough that I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Where?”
“On Dad’s phone.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
The old radiator clicked beside the wall.
I stared at it as if the metal could hold me in place.
“What pictures?”
“Your notebook.”
The word made my stomach turn.
“Why were you looking at his phone?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You just said you saw pictures.”
“He handed me his phone to send myself a photo from Christmas.”
Her words started coming faster.
“I swiped too far.”
“And you saw photographs of my notebook.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“My name was on the top of every page.”
“I knew it was yours.”
“That isn’t the same answer.”
She exhaled hard.
“I thought it had something to do with the company.”
“Why?”
“Because everything has something to do with the company.”
There was bitterness in that sentence I had never heard from her before.
Not toward me.
Toward Richard.
“What happened after that?”
“Nothing.”
“Madison.”
“Nothing happened.”
“You are calling me at nine o’clock at night while your father tells people I framed you.”
“I know.”
“Then stop protecting whichever part you think you can still protect.”
She went silent long enough that I heard someone laughing somewhere near her.
A television, maybe.
Or people in another room.
“I took pictures of the pictures,” she said.
I closed my eyes.
“With your phone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I was curious.”
“About my financial access codes?”
“I didn’t know what they were.”
“You knew enough to photograph them.”
“I thought maybe Dad was hiding money.”
That stopped me.
“From whom?”
“Everyone.”
I said nothing.
She continued.
“You don’t understand what it’s been like.”
“Then explain it.”
Another silence.
This one shook.
“Every month there was some emergency.”
Her voice had dropped.
“Payroll, taxes, a truck repair, some vendor threatening to stop deliveries.”
“I knew the company had problems.”
“No, you knew what Dad told you.”
I looked toward the closed door.
Outside it, Tessa and Miguel were speaking quietly.
“What are you saying?”
May you like
“I’m saying he’s been telling all of us different things.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
