Chương 8
“What did you tell them?” he asked.
“Everything I could remember.”
“Did you mention the other times?”
“Yes.”
“Maria?”
“Yes.”
“The phone?”
“Yes.”
He gripped the steering wheel.
“Did they say they would get it back?”
“They said they would ask.”
“Ask?”
“Lucas.”
He stopped.
At a red light, a delivery cyclist crossed in front of them carrying a bright blue insulated bag. Gwen watched him disappear between cars.
“I lied about one thing,” she said.
“To the detective?”
“No. To you.”
Lucas waited.
“I didn’t leave my phone upstairs. Your mother took it before the guests arrived. I told you that part. But she didn’t say phones were rude.”
“What did she say?”
“She said I had been recording conversations.”
“Were you?”
“Once.”
“Which conversation?”
“The one where she told me you would choose her if I made you choose.”
Lucas’s hands tightened around the wheel.
“Do you still have the recording?”
“It was on the phone.”
“Was it backed up?”
“I don’t know. I turned on cloud storage, but I never checked.”
“Why didn’t you send it to me?”
“Because I wanted to hear it again before deciding whether it was as bad as it felt.”
The light changed. A horn sounded behind them.
Lucas drove.
That afternoon, Nina’s forensic consultant determined that Gwen’s account still existed but required access from a trusted device. Gwen had an old tablet stored at the mansion.
“We’ll request it,” Nina said.
“I can go get it.”
“No.”
“It’s my house.”
“It is a residence controlled by the person your wife has accused of assault. Do not improvise.”
Lucas paced the apartment.
“What if she destroys it?”
“Then the request and any destruction become part of the record.”
“That doesn’t recover the recording.”
“No.”
“I hate answers that end there.”
“That is because your life has insulated you from them.”
Nina said it without cruelty. Lucas disliked her more for being right.
The emergency board meeting took place by video call because Lucas refused to leave Gwen alone. He sat at the small dining table in the furnished apartment, wearing a white shirt and no jacket. Brenda joined from the mansion library in a navy suit, her silver-blonde hair arranged as perfectly as it had been at the luncheon.
Eight directors appeared in separate squares.
The chairman, George Fenwick, cleared his throat.
“This is not a trial,” he said. “We are here to assess continuity of leadership.”
Brenda nodded gravely.
Lucas said nothing.
George asked whether Lucas was medically or emotionally capable of performing his duties.
“Yes.”
“Can you address the reports of an incident involving violence at your residence?”
“My wife was assaulted.”
Brenda closed her eyes briefly, as though pained by his recklessness.
George leaned closer to his camera. “By whom?”
“That is under investigation.”
“Your mother has stated that your wife suffered an episode and that you destroyed property.”
“I pulled a tablecloth after moving my wife to safety.”
A director named Paul Kim spoke. “Were guests present?”
“Yes.”
“Was glass broken?”
“Yes.”
“Were security personnel ordered to prevent guests from leaving?”
“No. They were asked to remain until the ambulance arrived.”
Brenda interrupted. “Marcus Cole stood in the doorway.”
“Because broken glass covered the dining room floor.”
“He stood in the salon doorway.”
George raised a hand. “One at a time.”
Lucas looked at his mother’s image.
She did not look angry. She looked disappointed, which had always been more effective.
“Why was Gwen under the table?” Paul asked.
Lucas felt Gwen’s presence in the bedroom behind him.
“That is her information to disclose.”
Brenda gave a small sigh.
“Lucas, you cannot make a public accusation and then hide behind privacy.”
“I’m not hiding behind it. I’m respecting it.”
“You are allowing a frightened woman’s confusion to damage a company that employs eleven hundred people.”
Lucas leaned back.
There it was: the population of the company placed between Brenda and accountability.
George asked whether Lucas would consider a temporary leave while the matter was investigated.
“No.”
“Would you consider granting your mother limited communication authority?”
“No.”
Brenda folded her hands.
“The acquisition is at risk,” she said. “The bank has requested reassurance. Our partners are reading gossip online. You have ignored calls for forty-eight hours.”
“My wife was in the hospital.”
“And I am sorry for that. But responsibility does not disappear when personal life becomes painful.”
Lucas stared at her.
He had heard the same principle his entire life. Brenda attended meetings after funerals, answered calls from recovery rooms, and once negotiated a loan modification while a surgeon explained that her husband’s heart had stopped.
She had treated endurance as morality because it was the only form of love she trusted.
“I will speak with the bank today,” Lucas said. “I will attend the acquisition call tomorrow. I will not transfer authority to a person under investigation for harming my wife.”
Two directors looked away from their screens.
Brenda’s composure cracked at last.
“You are destroying your father’s company over a woman who was preparing to leave you.”
Lucas stopped breathing.
The room went silent.
Gwen stood in the bedroom doorway.
Her face had gone pale.
Lucas looked at Brenda.
“How do you know that?”
Brenda’s lips parted.
Only slightly. Enough.
“You had her phone,” Lucas said.
“I was informed by someone concerned about you.”
“Who?”
“This is not relevant.”
“You read her communications with an attorney.”
“Lucas—”
“You knew she planned to leave the house.”
“I knew she was manipulating you.”
Gwen crossed the room and closed the laptop.
Brenda’s image vanished.
Lucas remained seated, staring at the black screen.
“You didn’t tell them,” Gwen said.
“No.”
“Simone didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then she read the email.”
Lucas stood.
Gwen stepped back.
The movement was instinctive.
He stopped immediately.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“That isn’t what I thought.”
He looked at the closed laptop.
“I should have known.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I should have.”
May you like
“No. You should have listened. That’s different.”
His phone began ringing. George Fenwick’s name appeared.
