Chương 10
Julian's face emptied.
I knew that look.
I had worn it myself six months earlier.
It was the moment betrayal stopped being emotional and became arithmetic.
Sienna continued.
"The real account balances were higher."
"How much higher?"
"I don't know exactly."
"Sienna."
"Millions."
No one spoke.
Even Richard seemed to understand that denial had become useless.
Julian looked at his father.
"Millions?"
Richard folded his arms.
"She has no idea what she's looking at."
Sienna's voice came through the speaker.
"I know enough to know Claire's name was attached to Bellmere."
My fingers tightened around Oliver's blanket.
"In what way?" Naomi asked.
Sienna went silent.
"Who is that?"
"My lawyer," I said.
"Oh."
Another silence.
Then, "I don't know if I should talk to you."
Naomi's voice stayed even.
"You should get your own attorney before speaking further."
Richard almost smiled.
"Finally, some sense."
Naomi continued.
"And you should preserve every document, message, credential, and device related to Bellmere, Vance Development, Martin Hale, Richard Vance, and Julian Vance."
Richard's smile disappeared.
Sienna whispered, "I already copied everything."
Julian stood so quickly the phone nearly slipped from his hand.
"Where?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know who I can trust."
"You called me."
"I called because you kept calling me."
"You disappeared."
"Because your father told me I could be blamed."
Julian looked at Richard.
Richard's expression did not move.
Sienna's voice broke.
"He said if anything happened, the access logs would show my name."
Price swore under his breath.
It was the first unprofessional thing he had done all morning.
Julian stared at his father for several seconds.
Then he said, "Did you?"
Richard spoke slowly.
"Did I what?"
"Did you tell her she'd take the fall?"
"Don't use childish language."
"Answer me."
Richard adjusted his cuff again.
"No."
Sienna laughed through the phone.
It was not the laugh I remembered from Julian's recordings.
This one sounded exhausted.
"I recorded you."
Richard's hand stopped.
Nobody moved.
Sienna breathed once into the silence.
"Not because I was trying to trap you."
"I recorded you because you scared me."
Richard's eyes closed for half a second.
When they opened, he looked toward the front door.
Price noticed.
"Don't leave."
Richard gave him a contemptuous stare.
"You have no authority to detain me."
"Correct."
Price stepped aside.
"But if you walk out right now, I will remember exactly when you chose to do it."
Richard looked at Julian.
Some part of him still expected his son to intervene.
Julian did not.
Richard walked to the door.
Evelyn stood.
"Richard."
He paused.
Her face had changed.
The woman who had arrived to take my children looked suddenly very old.
"Is Claire's name on that account?"
He said nothing.
Evelyn swallowed.
"Why?"
Still nothing.
Then Richard opened the door and left.
For several seconds, the only sound in the house was Leo beginning to fuss in my mother's arms.
Sienna was still on the line.
Julian looked down at the phone.
"Send me the recording."
"No."
"Sienna."
"I'm getting a lawyer."
"For once," Price said, "that's an excellent idea."
Sienna ignored him.
"Julian, there's something else."
He closed his eyes.
"What?"
"The transfer yesterday."
"What about it?"
"I didn't send the money out."
His eyes opened.
"You just said you transferred it."
"I moved it."
"To where?"
Another pause.
Sienna spoke so quietly that I almost missed the words.
"Into an account that requires Claire's authorization to release it."
For several seconds, nobody in the room seemed to understand what Sienna had just said.
Then Julian laughed once.
It was a small, disbelieving sound.
"Claire doesn't have authority over Bellmere."
Sienna did not answer immediately.
That pause scared me more than the sentence had.
Price looked at me.
Naomi's voice came through the phone.
"Claire, do not speculate."
"I wasn't going to."
Julian stared at his screen as if he could force Sienna to appear through it.
"What account?"
"The reserve account."
"There is no reserve account."
"There is."
"Under whose name?"
Sienna exhaled.
"Claire's."
My mother whispered, "Jesus."
I felt Oliver shift against me.
He had fallen asleep again, his cheek warm against my skin, completely unaware that adults were attaching his mother's name to money she had never seen.
I looked at Julian.
"Did you open an account in my name?"
"No."
His answer came too quickly.
Then he corrected himself.
"I don't think so."
"That's a very different answer."
"I didn't personally open anything."
Price spoke before I could.
"What does that mean?"
Julian rubbed the back of his neck.
"When we refinanced the Lakeview property two years ago, there were estate-planning documents."
I stared at him.
"We didn't own the Lakeview property."
"My family did."
"Then why was I signing anything?"
"You were my spouse."
"That is not an explanation."
He looked away.
It was.
Not a good one, but an explanation of how our marriage had worked.
Julian signed what Richard put in front of him.
I signed what Julian put in front of me.
Trust had passed down the family like an unsigned liability.
Naomi said, "Do you have copies of those documents?"
"I don't know."
I could hear her resisting the urge to sigh.
"Then today you do nothing involving that money."
Sienna spoke again.
"I didn't touch Claire's money."
"I don't have money," I said.
"I mean the account."
"You just said it's in my name."
"It uses your authorization."
"Those are not the same thing."
"I know."
She sounded embarrassed.
That made me believe her more than confidence would have.
"What exactly did you do?" Price asked.
Sienna hesitated.
"I moved eight hundred forty thousand from Bellmere's operating account into the reserve account because Richard told me to move it out before end of day."
Julian said, "Why would you put it there?"
"Because the reserve required two approvals to move it back out."
"Whose?"
"Yours and Claire's."
Julian looked at me.
I almost laughed.
May you like
Not because anything was funny.
Because somehow, in a family obsessed with keeping me powerless, they had apparently built a financial lock that required my name.
