Chương 7
Vincent walked to the window.
Below them, an ambulance backed into the emergency entrance. Its warning lights turned the wet pavement red.
“I should have known,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I should have stopped them.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Emily watched his reflection in the glass.
“But I should have known who I married,” she said.
Vincent looked at her through the reflection.
“That part is mine.”
Robert and Diane were released late that afternoon.
The prosecutor’s office concluded that police lacked enough evidence to hold them without charges. Their contradictory statements created suspicion, but suspicion was not probable cause for attempted murder. The medication belonged to Robert, yet no witness had seen him administer it. The doorman’s account had changed after media coverage. The lab had not completed confirmatory testing.
Quinn disliked the decision.
Kessler considered it inevitable.
Vincent called it a mistake.
“They’ll run,” he said.
He stood in the hospital’s family lounge, speaking quietly enough that the couple at the vending machine could not hear. Kessler leaned against a table and rubbed his forehead.
“Their passports are flagged,” Kessler said.
“They don’t need passports to disappear.”
“Most people do not have your travel arrangements.”
“Robert has money.”
“Less than he thinks.”
Vincent looked at him.
Kessler opened his phone.
“The probate court froze discretionary transfers from the Holloway family trust this morning.”
“Who requested that?”
“I did.”
“On whose authority?”
“Emily’s.”
“She was unconscious.”
“She signed a limited financial power of attorney six months ago when she discovered irregular withdrawals.”
Vincent stared at him.
“She gave you authority?”
“She did not trust Robert, and she did not want to tell you until she had proof.”
The symmetry of the secret was almost cruel enough to be funny.
Vincent sat.
Kessler watched him.
“You both built private rooms inside the marriage,” he said. “Hers had spreadsheets. Yours had armed men.”
“Do not compare them.”
“I’m not. Hers will not send her to prison.”
Vincent looked toward the hallway.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she was my client.”
“I paid you.”
“For corporate work. She hired me separately.”
“With what money?”
“Her own.”
Vincent rubbed his face.
A child in the corner of the lounge pressed the same button on a toy truck until its electronic horn weakened into a sad chirp. His father asked him to stop. The child did it again.
“What did she find?” Vincent asked.
“Nearly eight hundred thousand dollars in unexplained distributions over four years. Robert classified them as property maintenance and medical support for an elderly beneficiary who died two years earlier.”
“Diane?”
“Credit cards, mostly. A vacation property in Delaware. A private loan to Robert’s consulting company.”
“Emily planned to confront him?”
“She planned to remove him as co-trustee.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Vincent looked at him.
Kessler nodded. “The court petition was prepared. Robert would have been served at nine in the morning.”
The child pressed the truck horn again.
Vincent stared at the floor.
“Why poison Noah?”
“I don’t know.”
“He wasn’t part of the trust.”
“No.”
“He was leverage.”
“Maybe.”
Vincent lifted his head. “Maybe?”
“Do not become attached to the first story that explains your anger. Investigators do that and send innocent people to prison.”
“Robert isn’t innocent.”
“Of theft, probably not. Of poisoning, we still need proof.”
Vincent stood.
“Where are they now?”
“I am not telling you.”
“You know?”
“I had someone observe the release.”
“Who?”
“A licensed investigator who files taxes.”
Vincent walked closer.
Kessler did not move.
“If Carlo goes near them,” Kessler said, “the police will assume you ordered it. If Robert gets frightened, he may destroy evidence. If Diane gets frightened, she may stop talking. Your power is useful in exactly the way gasoline is useful near a stove.”
Vincent’s phone buzzed.
This time the message came from Emily.
Noah opened his eyes.
Vincent left without answering Kessler.
Noah’s eyes were dark gray and unfocused. They opened for only a few seconds, then closed again. Emily had been moved into a reclining chair beside the warmer. Her hand rested inside the port against his stomach.
Vincent entered slowly.
“He looked at me,” she said.
“I know.”
“You weren’t here.”
“I know because you look different.”
She did not smile.
He moved to the other side of the warmer.
For several minutes, they stood without speaking. Noah made a small sound and turned his face toward Emily’s finger.
Vincent whispered, “He hates being covered.”
“He likes being warm.”
“He kicks the blanket off.”
“He is seven days old. That is not a preference.”
“It’s a pattern.”
Emily looked at him.
“You’ve studied him?”
“I watch.”
“You’re usually on your phone.”
“I can do both.”
“You can pretend to do both.”
He accepted that.
Noah’s mouth opened. A tiny yawn passed through him.
Emily’s eyes filled again.
Vincent touched the outside of the warmer, not the baby.
“Robert was going to be removed from the trust tomorrow,” he said.
She looked at him sharply.
“Kessler told me.”
“He shouldn’t have.”
“He believed it mattered.”
“It was mine to tell you.”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised her.
She turned back to Noah.
“I found transfers,” she said. “At first I thought Dad had approved them before he died. Robert always said the lake house needed repairs. Then the invoices started repeating.”
“How long have you known?”
“Three months.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I asked you about the company in Brooklyn three years ago. You said it transported restaurant equipment.”
“It did.”
“It also transported stolen cars.”
Vincent said nothing.
Emily continued, “I didn’t know whether telling you would make Robert safer or less safe.”
“Less.”
“That’s why.”
He looked at her.
“I was afraid of what you might do before I even admitted to myself what you were.”
The words settled between them.
Noah’s monitor beeped steadily.
Vincent said, “I would not have hurt him without proof.”
Emily gave him a tired look.
“That sentence is not comforting.”
“No.”
May you like
“What would you have done with proof?”
He did not answer.
