Chapter 10: What Jessica Knew All Along
He found Jessica at a corner table in a coffee shop eight blocks from his apartment — the kind of place with mismatched chairs and a counter that had been there since before either of them was born.
She had a coffee in front of her and her hands wrapped around it.
She looked tired in a way that suggested this was not a new tiredness.
He sat down across from her.
"How long?" he said.
No preamble.
She had earned the direct question.
"My father worked for Robert Calloway," she said.
"Your father.
He was his assistant for four years.
He was with him the night before he d*ed." She looked at her coffee.
"Your father had shown him the documents he'd found.
He told my father he was planning to go public the next morning.
My father spent thirty years believing that if he had stayed with him that night, if he had driven him home, none of it would have happened."
Daniel said nothing.
"My father d*ed eight years ago.
Heart failure.
But before he did, he told me everything.
He asked me to do what he hadn't been able to." She looked up.
"I'm not a detective.
I'm not a lawyer.
I had no official standing to do anything.
So I watched.
I found Arthur Brennan — it took me two years.
I found the connection between Crest and the Hartwell family — another year after that." She paused.
"When you and Gloria got engaged, I thought I had run out of time.
I tried to find a way to warn you that didn't destroy something I wasn't sure needed to be destroyed."
"You chose the wedding," he said.
"I ran out of options.
And I knew that if Crest's people were moving that day — and I believed they would be — I needed to put everything into the open at once." She pressed her lips together.
"I know how it looked.
I know what it cost you."
"It cost me my wedding day," he said.
"But it probably saved my firm.
And it may have saved Arthur Brennan this morning."
She looked at him.
"Is he alright?"
"He's alright.
Crest's men left when the patrol car arrived."
She exhaled.
"Good."
He looked at her for a moment.
"The photograph," he said.
"The one on the back — *He knows too much.
It has to stop.* Where did you really get it?"
She set her coffee down.
"Your father gave it to mine the night before he d*ed.
He said if anything happened to him, it was evidence of who was in the room when the decision was made." She met his eyes.
"I've had it for eight years.
I didn't know if I'd ever be in a position to use it properly."
"You used it," he said.
"Yes."
He leaned back in the chair.
"My father trusted your father," he said.
"Yes."
"And your father trusted you."
"He didn't have anyone else."
Daniel looked at the street through the window.
An ordinary afternoon.
People walking with bags, with dogs, with their hands in their pockets.
The world continuing.
"Reeves is filing a warrant for Crest this week," he said.
"Arthur's account is on the record.
Margaret Hartwell's testimony is on the record.
The transaction documentation is on the record."
Jessica's eyes closed briefly.
"And the photograph?" she asked.
"Also on the record."
She nodded.
She picked up her coffee.
She drank.
"Thank you," he said.
She shook her head.
"Thank your father.
He thought far enough ahead to make sure someone would know."
He put enough money on the table to cover both coffees.
He stood.
"If you need anything from me going forward," he said, "call me directly."
She looked up at him.
"How are you?" she asked.
And she meant it simply — not strategically, not as a closing line.
Just the question.
He thought about it honestly.
"I don't know yet," he said.
May you like
"But I think I will be."
He walked out into the afternoon.
