Chapter 7: Friday
I did not respond to the message.
Frank advised silence.
Reyes advised silence.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to call Marcus Hale and say things I couldn't take back, and I sat with that feeling every night that week and did nothing.
Wednesday, the forensic accountant Frank had hired sent a preliminary report.
Crestline Partners had received two wire transfers in the eighteen months since its incorporation.
The first was from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands — forty thousand dollars.
The second was from a domestic account registered to a property management company in Harlow.
The property management company's registered agent was Vanessa.
She had been moving money through my company's equity stake as collateral.
Not taking it outright — using it as leverage to borrow against, quietly, in a way that would only become visible if someone looked for it specifically.
Frank read the report twice.
Then he called Reyes.
"She wasn't just covering up what happened to Elena," he said to me after he hung up.
"She married you to finish what they started.
The business was always the target."
I sat with that for a long time.
Thursday night, my daughter came downstairs and found me at the kitchen table with the lights low.
She sat across from me without being asked.
"Are you scared?" she said.
"A little."
"Me too." She folded her hands on the table, very adult, very small.
"But you found the folder.
Mommy wanted you to find it."
"I think so."
"Then she's still helping us." She said it simply, without drama, the way children say true things.
"She's still on our side."
I didn't trust my voice for a moment.
"Yes," I said.
"She is."
Friday morning arrived gray and cold.
At nine a.m., Marcus Hale walked into the lobby of my office building.
I watched him on the security feed from Frank's car, parked across the street.
Reyes was in the passenger seat.
Two plainclothes officers were already inside the building.
Marcus was tall, well-dressed, unhurried.
He carried a leather portfolio.
He spoke to the receptionist and gave his name.
"He thinks he's here to negotiate," Reyes said.
"What is he actually walking into?" I asked.
"A warrant executed forty minutes ago on his home office.
Another on the property management company's registered address." She watched the screen.
"And two detectives waiting for him on the fourth floor."
"He'll lawyer up immediately."
"He already has a lawyer.
His lawyer is currently being interviewed by my colleagues in a separate building about the notarized document." She glanced at me.
"When you pull one thread, Daniel, everything attached to it moves."
On the screen, Marcus stepped into the elevator.
The doors closed.
Reyes's radio crackled once.
She picked it up, listened, and set it down.
"He's in custody," she said.
The words were quiet.
Ordinary.
They didn't feel the size of what they meant.
I looked through the windshield at the building where I had built my company, where Elena had once brought the children for lunch on a Friday, where Vanessa had sat across from me at the conference table eighteen months ago and smiled and said she was so proud of everything I had created.
"What about Vanessa?" I asked.
Reyes looked at her watch.
"Her attorney called mine at eight-fifteen this morning.
She's agreed to cooperate fully in exchange for a reduced charge on the fr@ud counts." She paused.
"She will not receive a reduction on anything related to Elena."
"Good," I said.
It came out harder than I intended.
Reyes didn't flinch.
May you like
"Yes," she said.
"Good."
