Chapter 2 - The Question No One Would Answer
Claire stood in the middle of Julian’s private study wrapped in a hotel robe three sizes too large.
Her wet dress had been taken downstairs.
Someone had brought towels.
Someone else had found a pair of slippers.
The doctor had examined her and declared that she was cold, bruised, and otherwise fine.
Julian had been given the same assessment, with considerably more concern and considerably fewer questions.
Now the doctor was gone.
Only Julian and Claire remained.
He sat in a different wheelchair near the window.
His wet hair had been towel-dried but not combed. He had changed into black trousers and a dark sweater. The transformation was strange. Without the suit, without the terrace full of people orbiting him, he looked younger.
More human.
It lasted until he spoke.
“Why did you lie?”
Claire folded the robe more tightly around herself.
“I exaggerated some experience.”
“You created a former employer.”
Her stomach tightened.
Julian opened a leather folder.
“Northbridge Administrative Services.”
He looked down.
“The address belongs to a laundromat in Raleigh.”
Claire said nothing.
“The phone number routes through an internet service.”
Still nothing.
“The reference who identified himself as Samuel Turner has never filed income tax under that name.”
“You investigate your secretaries with federal databases?”
“I investigate everyone who enters my house.”
“Then why hire me?”
“Excellent question.”
Claire watched him.
Julian placed the folder aside.
“I wanted to see what you were looking for.”
The room suddenly felt much smaller.
“I needed a job.”
“You needed access.”
Claire's pulse accelerated.
“Access to what?”
“My calendar. My correspondence. My family.”
“I type letters and schedule meetings.”
“You also spent seventeen minutes in the east archive on Tuesday.”
“I was looking for invoice files.”
“There are no invoice files in the east archive.”
Claire forced herself not to react.
Julian leaned back.
His face revealed very little.
“That was your first mistake.”
“What was my second?”
“Saving me.”
Claire stared.
“You think I should have let you drown?”
“No.”
“Then how was it a mistake?”
“Because now everyone who wanted me dead knows you are not one of them.”
Silence settled between them.
Claire looked toward the door.
Julian noticed.
“It’s locked.”
“From which side?”
“Both.”
“That’s comforting.”
His mouth moved slightly.
Not a smile.
Almost one.
“You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m deciding whether I should be.”
“You should.”
Claire looked directly at him.
“But I’m more afraid of whoever convinced nearly two hundred people that helping you was a bad idea.”
That erased the almost-smile.
Julian rolled toward the desk.
“What exactly did you hear?”
“One word.”
“Don’t.”
“Male?”
“Yes.”
“Age?”
“I don’t know.”
“Accent?”
“American.”
“Everyone here is American.”
“No. Some people at the party weren’t.”
He watched her.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“You listen.”
“My brother taught me.”
“Andrew.”
Claire’s breath caught.
Julian’s gaze sharpened.
“Yes. I know his name.”
“You investigated him too?”
“I investigated you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“He disappeared fourteen months ago.”
Claire felt heat rise under the robe despite the cold still sitting in her bones.
“You know about that.”
“I know he stopped using his credit cards on June eighth. His phone last connected to a tower outside Richmond. His apartment lease continued being paid automatically for five months. His bank account remained untouched.”
Claire stepped toward him.
“Why do you know that?”
“Because your brother worked for one of my companies.”
The words struck with physical force.
“No.”
“Vescari Logistics.”
“He worked for Hanover Freight.”
“Hanover is ours.”
Claire shook her head.
Andrew had never told her.
Then again, Andrew had stopped telling her many things during the final months before he vanished.
He had become secretive.
Nervous.
He changed passwords.
He stopped staying at home.
Three days before disappearing, he had called Claire shortly after midnight.
If something happens to me, he had said, don’t believe the first story they tell you.
Claire had laughed nervously.
Andrew had not.
Then he said another thing.
The lake remembers what people bury.
At the time, Claire thought it was metaphorical.
After Andrew vanished, police decided he had likely left voluntarily.
There was no evidence of violence.
No body.
No ransom demand.
Nothing.
Six months later, Claire had found a photograph among his belongings.
Andrew stood outside the Bellweather estate beside a company vehicle.
Julian Vescari was visible in the background.
That photograph was why Claire had lied.
Why she had created Northbridge.
Why she had applied for Julian’s private office.
“Andrew worked for you?” she whispered.
“He worked for someone who worked for me.”
“Who?”
“Victor Dane.”
Claire knew the name.
Vescari Logistics’ former chief financial officer.
He had died in a boating accident seventeen months ago.
Three months before Andrew disappeared.
Julian continued.
“Your brother began asking questions after Dane died.”
“What questions?”
“About missing freight.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Weapons?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
Julian looked toward the closed door.
“Money.”
Claire almost laughed.
“People don’t disappear over accounting.”
“People disappear over amounts that can purchase governments.”
The words settled heavily.
Julian opened a drawer and removed a small black notebook.
“He believed someone inside my organization was moving company funds through shell contractors.”
Claire took the notebook.
It was empty.
“What is this?”
“The same type Andrew used.”
Claire opened it again.
Blank pages.
“He had one when he disappeared.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw him with it the night he confronted me.”
Claire’s eyes lifted.
“You met him.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told the police?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your brother asked me not to.”
Anger surged through her.
“Andrew has been missing fourteen months.”
“I know.”
“You let my family think he walked away.”
Julian’s face hardened.
“I was trying to find him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Claire threw the notebook onto the desk.
“You expect me to believe you?”
“No.”
The answer stopped her.
Julian turned his chair toward the windows.
Outside, staff were beginning to clear the terrace.
The white umbrellas remained.
So did the flowers.
From this distance, the party looked as if it had simply ended early.
“He told me he had evidence,” Julian said.
“Evidence of what?”
“That someone had been stealing from me for years.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t trust me.”
Claire gave a bitter laugh.
“Smart man.”
Julian accepted the insult without reaction.
“He believed the person responsible had influence over my family, my security, and portions of my company.”
Claire thought of Gabriel standing dry beside the lake.
Victoria’s moment of disappointment.
The guests who had obeyed a whispered command.
“Did Andrew think this person caused Victor Dane’s death?”
“Yes.”
“And yours?”
Julian’s eyes shifted toward her.
“My accident?”
She nodded.
Twenty-six months earlier, Julian Vescari’s car had gone through a guardrail on a mountain road.
His driver died.
Julian survived with spinal injuries that left him unable to use his legs.
The official investigation blamed mechanical failure.
Claire suddenly hated the phrase.
Mechanical failure.
Today’s wheelchair might be described the same way.
“You think your crash wasn’t an accident.”
Julian’s silence answered.
Claire walked to the window.
Workers were pulling something from the lake.
The wheelchair.
Two men lifted it onto the terrace.
A third bent toward the control panel.
Gabriel Knox.
Claire leaned closer to the glass.
“He’s touching it.”
Julian turned sharply.
“What?”
“Gabriel.”
Julian rolled to the window.
Below, Gabriel removed something from the underside of the chair and slipped it into his pocket.
Claire saw it clearly.
A small black object.
Julian saw it too.
Neither spoke.
Gabriel looked toward the house.
Claire instinctively moved away from the window.
Julian remained where he was.
“Did he see us?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“What did he remove?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we stop him?”
“No.”
Claire stared.
“No?”
“If Gabriel is guilty, stopping him tells him we know.”
“And if he’s innocent?”
“Then we learn why my security chief is secretly removing components from a wheelchair that nearly killed me.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall.
Someone tried the door.
Locked.
A knock followed.
“Julian?”
Victoria.
Julian and Claire looked at one another.
Victoria knocked again.
“I know she’s in there.”
Julian said nothing.
“Claire Bennett,” Victoria called through the door. “You should understand something before my brother fills your head with his paranoia.”
Claire frowned.
Julian’s jaw tightened.
Victoria continued.
“My brother’s chair didn’t malfunction.”
Silence.
Then:
“And no one pushed him.”
Claire glanced at Julian.
Victoria lowered her voice.
“He rolled himself into that lake.”
Claire stared at the door.
Julian’s expression changed for the first time.
Not anger.
Fear.
Because Victoria was not simply accusing him of lying.
She was trying to establish a story.
A story that could explain everything.
The witnesses who had not moved.
The whispered command.
The missing wheelchair component.
And perhaps even Julian’s death, if the lake had kept him.
Claire looked at him.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Can you prove it?”
Julian looked toward the terrace.
“No.”
Victoria’s heels moved away from the door.
Claire waited until the sound disappeared.
Then she asked the question neither of them wanted to consider.
“How many of those people outside are going to say they saw you do it?”
Julian looked at the white umbrellas below.
“Enough.”
May you like
And somewhere beneath them, nearly two hundred witnesses were already deciding which version of the truth would keep them safest.
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