Chapter 7: The Call at Eight O'Clock
He didn't sleep.
He read through Arthur Brennan's folder four times.
He ordered it, copied what he needed onto a legal pad, and laid the documents side by side on the kitchen table.
By two in the morning he had a timeline running from thirty-one years ago to three months ago that was clean enough to hand to someone who knew what to do with it.
At five, he made coffee.
At six forty-five, his phone lit up with a text from a number he didn't recognize.
*You should know that Crest had someone at the venue today.
Not Brennan's son.
Someone else.
He already knows you left early.
— J*
He stared at the J for a long moment.
He typed back: *Jessica?*
Three dots.
Then: *I've been watching this situation longer than you know.
I'll explain when you're ready.
Make your call.*
He set the phone face-down.
At seven fifty-eight, Margaret Hartwell knocked on his door.
She had changed clothes.
Dark blouse.
No jewelry.
She carried a small leather folio.
She looked like someone who had also not slept, and who had decided in the sleepless hours to become useful rather than defended.
He let her in.
He poured her coffee without asking.
She sat at the table and opened the folio.
"I have dates and transaction records going back to the year after my husband passed," she said.
"Crest made his first demand within six weeks of the funeral.
He wanted a controlling stake in two of our property holdings.
We gave them to him." She turned a page.
"Since then, eleven additional transfers.
I have documentation for nine of them."
"What did he use as leverage?"
"Evidence he claims to have about the night your father d*ed.
He says he has a witness who would contradict Arthur Brennan's account." She paused.
"I believe he's lying.
But I've never been certain enough to call his bluff."
"He's lying," Daniel said.
"Brennan's account is consistent with the physical record.
There was no other witness listed in the police report."
"I know that now."
Daniel checked the time.
8:01.
He picked up his phone and dialed.
The call connected on the second ring.
"Reeves," said the voice on the other end.
A woman.
Direct.
"This is Daniel Calloway.
We met at the Harmon Foundation event last year.
You gave me your card and said if I ever had something worth your office's time, to call directly."
A brief pause.
"I remember."
"I have a thirty-one-year-old vehicular homicide with a living eyewitness, a documented cover-up, a connected blackmail operation currently active, and a principal who has made recent attempts to access my professional accounts." He looked at Margaret Hartwell across the table.
She was watching him steadily.
"I also have a secondary witness who was part of the cover-up and is prepared to cooperate."
The pause this time was longer.
"How soon can you come in?"
"This morning.
Both of us."
"Ten o'clock," Reeves said.
"Use the side entrance on Carlyle Street.
Ask for my assistant by name — Petra."
"I'll be there."
He ended the call.
Margaret Hartwell closed her folio.
She picked up her coffee cup and held it with both hands without drinking.
"My husband wasn't a violent man," she said quietly.
"He was a frightened one.
When your father threatened everything we had built, he made a terrible decision and handed it to someone else to carry out.
He told himself he didn't know what that someone would do." She set the cup down.
"He knew."
Daniel didn't respond to that.
There was nothing useful to say.
"I understand if my cooperation doesn't change anything for you personally," she said.
"It doesn't," he said.
"But it changes things for Arthur Brennan.
So that's what matters."
She nodded once.
He picked up the folder and the legal pad.
He put on his jacket.
"Mrs.
Hartwell," he said at the door.
"One question before we go."
She looked up.
"Did Gloria know about Crest?
The blackmail specifically?"
She was quiet for just a moment.
"No," she said.
"That I kept from her.
She knew the original secret.
She didn't know it had continued."
May you like
He held the door open.
They left together.
