Chapter 16
He was forty-four years old, tall, and dressed in a suit that cost more than most people's monthly rent.
He looked at Martin.
He looked at Patricia and her two associates and their laptops and their stacked files.
He looked at Harold.
He didn't look at Anna until he had no choice.
She was standing against the far wall, straight-backed, her arms at her sides.
Something moved across Victor's face.
Too fast to name.
"Dad," he said.
"I think we should talk privately."
"We're talking here," Harold said.
Victor's eyes moved around the room again, cataloguing, calculating.
"You've brought a financial investigator in.
That's — I understand why you felt you needed to do that.
But I want you to know, before this goes any further, that I am willing to sit down and walk you through every transaction in question.
Every single one.
There are explanations."
"I'm sure there are," Harold said.
"There are explanations for Meridian Trust as well, I expect."
Victor's composure held.
It was impressive, Harold thought distantly.
The composure of a man who had been holding a complicated lie for a very long time.
"That account was set up as a protective structure," Victor said.
"In your name, at your liability instruction — you were concerned about exposure at the time, you asked me to—"
"I never asked you to do anything of the kind," Harold said.
"And you know I didn't."
"Dad, you were under significant stress that year.
Your memory of certain conversations—"
"Don't." Harold's voice was quiet and absolute.
"Do not do that."
Victor stopped.
"You told my daughter," Harold said, "that if she spoke to me, you would destroy her.
You had twenty-two years old in an apartment, no resources, no allies, and you threatened her with documents you'd fabricated using my name.
And then when she was gone, you told me nothing.
You stood at your mother's funeral.
May you like
You stood there and you said nothing."
The room was very still.
