Chapter 3: Everything He Built on a Lie
We stayed under that pier for two hours.
The water dripped from the concrete above us in a slow, steady rhythm.
My clothes were soaked through.
My hands had stopped shaking only because I had pressed them flat against the cold stone wall.
Tobias sat on a narrow ledge, watching the road above.
"Start from the beginning," I said.
"All of it."
He didn't look at me immediately.
He watched the road for another moment, then turned.
"Fifteen years ago, when Mom and Dad went off that bridge, I was in the car too.
You know that.
What you don't know is that I wasn't thrown clear by accident." He paused.
"Someone pulled me out before the car went over."
"Who?"
"A man named Harlan Voss.
Garrett's father."
I stared at him.
"Harlan was there when it happened?"
"He caused it." Tobias's voice was flat.
"He and Dad had been in a legal dispute over the Baltimore shipyard for years.
Dad refused to sell.
Refused to partner.
Refused every offer Harlan put on the table." He looked down at his hands.
"So Harlan found another way."
"He kjlled them."
"He ran them off the road and left.
He pulled me out first because I was twelve years old and even he had a line somewhere.
Or maybe he just didn't want a child's d3ath on top of everything else." Tobias's jaw tightened.
"He told me to stay quiet.
Told me that if I ever said a word, the next accident would be mine.
And he looked at me the way a man looks at you when he means it."
The dripping water was the only sound between us.
"So you pretended," I said slowly.
"The wheelchair.
The paralysis.
All of it."
"If I was in a wheelchair, I wasn't a threat.
I wasn't someone Harlan needed to worry about." He finally looked up.
"And it kept you safer too, Rosalind.
As long as they thought I was broken, they left you alone to run the shipyard.
They were patient.
They had a longer plan."
"Garrett."
"Garrett." He nodded.
"Harlan's son.
Introduced to you at the maritime conference in Charleston.
You remember how that happened?"
I did remember.
A colleague had brought him over.
Charming.
Attentive.
He'd known the shipyard's history better than most people I'd worked with for years.
I had found that impressive.
I felt sick.
"It was arranged," I said.
"The colleague who introduced you was on Harlan's payroll.
The conference invitation you received that year — Harlan's firm sponsored the event.
Every detail of that first meeting was designed." Tobias's voice didn't soften.
"I'm sorry.
I know what that means to hear."
I pressed my back against the stone pillar.
Three years.
The first dinner.
The proposal on the harbor at sunset.
The wedding where Tobias sat in his wheelchair in the front row and I thought I saw him cry.
"You were crying at my wedding," I said.
"I thought it was because you were happy."
He didn't answer that.
He didn't need to.
"The compound," I said.
"How long have you known?"
"Eight months.
I had a contact — someone who owed me a favor from before the accident.
A chemist.
I started watching Garrett in the kitchen about a year ago.
Small things.
The way he always insisted on making your milk himself.
The way he'd turn his back for just a moment before bringing it to you." Tobias reached into the waterproof case again and produced a second folded paper.
"I collected a sample four months ago.
This is the full analysis."
I took it.
My eyes moved down the page but the words blurred.
"What does it do to me?"
"Long-term, it causes liver degradation.
Gradual.
Mimics a hereditary condition.
Any doctor reviewing your file would assume it was genetic — especially given that your mother had similar symptoms before she d!ed." He stopped.
"Which was not a coincidence."
The ground felt unstable beneath me even though I was standing still.
"They p0isoned my mother too."
"I believe so.
I can't prove it yet.
But the compound is the same family of substance." He folded the paper back.
"Rosalind.
There's something else you need to understand about today."
"What."
"Garrett wasn't acting alone on a personal decision.
This was scheduled.
The transfer documents for the shipyard were filed with a Baltimore notary three days ago — contingent on your d3ath being certified within thirty days." He met my eyes.
"He already filed the paperwork.
He was that certain."
Somewhere above us, a car passed on the coastal road.
We both went still.
The headlights swept across the water and disappeared.
"He thinks we're at the bottom of the river," I said quietly.
"Yes."
"Then that's the only advantage we have."
Tobias looked at me for a long moment.
Something shifted in his expression — not relief exactly.
Something older than that.
"There's one more thing," he said.
"The notary who filed those transfer documents."
"Who is it?"
He hesitated just long enough that I already knew the answer was going to change something.
"Her name is on the lab report too," he said.
"As the person who sourced the compound."
I looked down at the paper in my hand.
At the bottom, in a witness signature line I hadn't reached yet, was a name I recognized.
May you like
Not Penelope.
Someone I had trusted far longer than either of them.
