Chương 8
Nathan almost smiled.
“You work for me.”
“Currently, that relationship is less clear than it was yesterday.”
Nathan stared.
James raised one eyebrow.
It was the closest he came to humor.
“Fine.”
Nathan took out his phone.
He called the general counsel.
The conversation lasted twelve unpleasant minutes.
By the end, Cole Meridian had agreed to retain an outside forensic accounting firm and provide records responsive to law-enforcement requests.
Nathan hated every cautious word.
He also understood why they existed.
Three years earlier, he had used those same words as shelter.
Now he heard what shelter sounded like from the rain.
Victoria disappeared Monday afternoon.
Not vanished.
Adults with mortgages, credit cards, license plates, and phones rarely vanished in the old-fashioned sense.
She stopped answering calls.
Her apartment building showed her leaving at 2:14 p.m. carrying one overnight bag.
Her company phone remained on her kitchen counter.
Her personal phone went offline twenty minutes later.
She withdrew three thousand dollars in cash.
Police did not yet have grounds to arrest her.
Nathan found this distinction intolerable.
Alvarez did not.
“You cannot arrest people because their behavior makes you nervous.”
“She ran.”
“She left her apartment.”
“She withdrew cash.”
“People are allowed to have cash.”
“She tried to take Emma’s phone.”
“I know.”
“She visited Claire.”
“I know.”
“She authorized payments connected to Cross.”
“I know.”
Nathan stared across the interview-room table.
“What exactly would be enough?”
“Evidence.”
“I’m giving you evidence.”
“You’re giving me pieces.”
“How many pieces make a picture?”
Alvarez closed her notebook.
“You really hate not being able to buy speed.”
Nathan leaned back.
“This isn’t about money.”
“No?”
“My wife was nearly killed.”
“Yes.”
“My daughter is afraid to sleep.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me to wait.”
“I’m telling you the law moves slower than panic.”
Nathan looked away.
Alvarez softened slightly.
“I know that feels unbearable.”
He glanced at her.
She added, “It is still better than the alternative.”
Nathan did not ask what alternative she meant.
He knew.
People like him deciding certainty was the same thing as proof.
That night Emma refused to return to the mansion.
Nathan had assumed she would want her own bed.
He had been wrong.
She stood in the hospital lobby holding his hand and said, “I don’t want Victoria to know where I sleep.”
Nathan explained that Victoria’s access had been revoked.
Emma stared at him.
“She knows windows.”
He had no answer to that.
They stayed at a hotel across the street from St. Augustine.
Not one Nathan owned.
He chose a room under James’s name and then spent ten minutes feeling ridiculous about it.
Emma slept in one bed.
Nathan took the other.
At 2:11 a.m. her phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Emma woke screaming.
Nathan was beside her before he understood what had happened.
It was a weather alert.
Thunderstorms.
Emma stared at the phone as though it had betrayed her.
Nathan switched it off.
She whispered, “Mom might call.”
“I’ll keep mine on.”
“What if she calls me?”
“I’ll sit here.”
Emma looked at him.
“For how long?”
“As long as you need.”
He expected her to lie down.
Instead she said, “You always say that and then you check email.”
Nathan put his phone facedown on the carpet.
Emma watched him.
“Okay.”
He stayed beside the bed.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then forty.
Nathan’s back began to ache.
A truck reversed somewhere below with three repetitive beeps.
Emma’s breathing gradually slowed.
Nathan thought she was asleep.
Then she whispered, “I used to like Victoria.”
Nathan stared into the dark.
“I know.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“More than Mom?”
“No.”
Emma was quiet.
“Did Mom think you did?”
Nathan rubbed a hand over his face.
This was not a conversation he had expected to have with a seven-year-old at three in the morning in a hotel room booked under his security chief’s name.
“Sometimes your mom thought I trusted Victoria more.”
“Did you?”
Nathan considered lying.
“No.”
Emma rolled over to face him.
“Why?”
“Because Victoria usually told me things in a way I liked hearing them.”
Emma frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your mom sometimes told me I was wrong.”
“Victoria didn’t?”
“Not as often.”
Emma thought about that.
“That’s dumb.”
Nathan nodded.
“Very.”
She closed her eyes.
A minute later she said, “I think I’m still going to miss her.”
Nathan looked at his daughter.
“That’s allowed.”
This time she slept.
Tuesday brought the first piece of evidence that did not depend on anyone’s memory.
The forensic accountants found eighteen payments tied to NH Strategic Services.
The beneficial owner, through two layers of limited-liability companies, was Daniel Cross.
Victoria Lane had personally approved eleven payments after Daniel’s termination.
The total was just over nine million dollars.
Nathan read the preliminary report in Claire’s hospital room while she ate toast.
“You look constipated,” she said.
He handed her the tablet.
She read for thirty seconds.
Then stopped chewing.
“Nine million?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“No idea.”
“Kickbacks?”
“Maybe.”
“Blackmail?”
“Maybe.”
“Services?”
Nathan looked at her.
Claire shrugged.
“Criminals sometimes invoice.”
He sat beside the window.
She scrolled.
“Daniel could have exposed the old settlement whenever he wanted.”
“Yes.”
“So why keep taking company money?”
Nathan said nothing.
Claire looked up.
“What?”
“I’m wondering if we’re still assuming Daniel needed Victoria.”
“And?”
“Maybe Victoria needed Daniel.”
Claire lowered the tablet.
Nathan continued.
“She controlled vendor approval after he left. She controlled the payments.”
“Daniel owned the company.”
“Yes.”
“But she fed it.”
“Yes.”
Claire stared at the screen.
“Then what was she buying?”
That question changed the investigation.
Until then, Nathan had assumed Daniel Cross had returned to take revenge.
It fit his memory of the man.
Daniel had not merely been angry when he was fired. He had considered it an insult to the natural order of things.
Nathan had power.
Daniel believed he deserved it more.
May you like
But revenge did not explain three years of quiet payments.
Money did not explain why Victoria, already earning several million dollars a year, would risk everything to send more.
