Chapter 4: The Drive
Dominic's home office was on the ground floor, north side of the house — a room Claire had complained about because it had no view worth having.
He had never changed it.
The point of the room was not the view.
He sat down, inserted the drive, and waited.
Marcus stood at the door.
Nathan had not followed them downstairs.
Dominic had not asked him to stay.
The drive contained one folder.
Inside the folder, eleven files.
Audio recordings, all of them, labeled by date.
The earliest was sixteen months ago.
The most recent was four days before Dominic had left for his trip.
He opened the first file.
Claire's voice came through the speakers immediately, mid-conversation, as though the recording had started late.
*"— can't keep waiting.
He's going to change the will before the wedding if we don't move."*
A man's voice answered.
The same flat, careful tone Dominic had been hearing all morning.
Nathan.
*"He won't change it before the wedding.
He's not suspicious of anything."*
*"He trusts her too much.
The housekeeper.
She sees everything, Nathan.
She was in the study when his attorney came last month.
She heard the whole conversation."*
*"Then we manage the housekeeper."*
A pause.
*"What does that mean?"*
*"It means we manage her.
Stop asking questions you don't want the answers to."*
Dominic reached out and paused the file.
The room was very quiet.
Marcus, at the door, had not moved.
His face showed nothing.
That was one of the reasons Dominic had kept him for nine years.
"How many people knew about the will revision?" Dominic asked.
"You, your attorney, and whoever your attorney told." Marcus paused.
"And anyone in the room when it was discussed."
Dominic restarted the file.
The conversation continued for another four minutes.
Claire's voice was careful, measured — the voice of someone who had thought through what she was saying before she said it.
Nathan's was quieter.
More certain.
He spoke the way a man speaks when he has already decided and is only explaining the decision to someone slower.
By the third recording, the shape of it was clear.
Claire stood to inherit a significant portion of Dominic's estate as his wife.
But the revised will — the one his attorney had drafted fourteen months ago, the one Mia had apparently overheard — reduced that portion substantially and redirected the majority to a charitable trust Dominic had been building for years.
Claire would receive enough.
She would not receive everything.
That was the problem.
That was what Mia had heard.
And that was why Mia had spent three days in the dark.
Dominic opened the ninth recording.
This one was different — shorter, rougher, taken somewhere with ambient noise.
A kitchen, maybe.
He could hear the faint sound of running water.
Claire's voice, quieter than before.
*"She has to be gone before he gets back.
If she talks to him—"*
*"She won't talk to anyone."*
*"Nathan.
I need to hear you say it clearly."*
A pause long enough that Dominic thought the recording might have cut out.
Then Nathan's voice, very calm, very flat.
*"She won't talk to anyone."*
Dominic closed the laptop.
He sat for a moment with his hands flat on the desk.
Then he picked up his phone and called his attorney — not the main line this time, the direct number that rang through regardless of the hour.
"I need you here," he said when the line connected.
"Bring whatever you need to receive evidence.
And call Detective Raines.
Tell him it's me.
Tell him to come now."
He ended the call and looked at Marcus.
"Where is Claire?"
"Her car is still in the garage.
She hasn't left the property."
"Find her.
Don't approach her.
Just find her and tell me where she is."
Marcus left.
Dominic sat alone in the office for exactly ninety seconds.
Then he stood, walked to the window, and looked out at the east garden — the garden where someone had stood with a camera and photographed Mia through the office glass.
His phone buzzed.
Marcus: *She's in the conservatory.
Having tea.*
Dominic read the message twice.
May you like
Having tea.
He put the phone in his pocket and walked toward the conservatory.
