Chapter 5 - The Choice Isabelle Had Been Preparing to Make

Marco’s explanation created a problem I had not expected.

It was plausible.

Not comforting.

Not convincing.

Plausible.

People imagine guilt makes liars clumsy. Sometimes guilt makes them precise. Sometimes innocence makes people defensive enough to look guilty. I had built a career on knowing the difference, and I no longer trusted myself where my brother was concerned.

So I stopped trying to read him.

I started reading the past.

Nico found the attorney before noon.

Her name was Evelyn Shaw.

Family law, estate restructuring, corporate separation.

Not federal.

That mattered.

She agreed to meet only after I told her Isabelle was dead and I was not asking her to violate privilege she still believed applied.

Her office occupied three quiet rooms above a florist in Garden City.

No marble.

No security desk.

No men outside wearing jackets heavy enough to hide guns.

Isabelle would have liked it.

Evelyn Shaw was sixty-three, silver-haired, and unimpressed by my name.

That made two women in one week.

I was losing my edge.

She closed her office door and remained standing.

“You frightened her.”

The sentence landed before hello.

I looked at her.

“Isabelle?”

“Who else?”

Nico sat in the corner and said nothing.

I took the chair opposite Evelyn’s desk.

“What did she want from you?”

“You said you were not asking me to violate privilege.”

“I’m asking what she was trying to accomplish.”

Evelyn studied me.

Then sat.

“She wanted to know whether your legitimate holdings could be separated from your criminal exposure.”

The bluntness almost made me smile.

Almost.

“What did you tell her?”

“That it would be difficult.”

“Impossible?”

“No.”

That surprised me.

“She also wanted new trusts for the girls,” Evelyn continued. “Ones no member of your organization could control if you died.”

“Marco was trustee.”

“I know.”

My stomach tightened.

“She wanted him removed?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Evelyn’s eyes sharpened.

“She did not trust him.”

There it was.

Not proof.

Another line pointing in the same direction.

“Did she say why?”

“She believed money was disappearing from one of your logistics companies.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“She deliberately did not.”

“Why?”

“She said the less I knew about your business, the longer I would remain useful.”

That sounded exactly like Isabelle.

“What did she know?”

“Enough to believe someone close to you was moving money through vendors you never reviewed personally.”

I thought of a dozen companies.

Then fifty.

My organization had grown too large for one man’s attention years ago. Marco handled the parts I trusted him to handle.

Trust again.

Always trust.

“Did she think Marco was stealing?”

“She never used that word.”

“What word did she use?”

Evelyn hesitated.

“Preparing.”

“For what?”

“She didn’t know.”

I leaned back.

Nico finally spoke.

“Did Isabelle plan to go to law enforcement?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

“Did she plan to leave Dominic?”

Evelyn looked at me.

“No.”

That hurt more than if she had said yes.

I had spent fourteen months imagining all the conversations we would never finish. I had never imagined she had been trying to stay.

“What did she plan?”

“To force a choice.”

“What choice?”

“You or the organization.”

I looked down at my hands.

“She thought I’d choose her?”

“She thought you’d choose your daughters.”

A long silence followed.

Evelyn opened a drawer but removed nothing.

“She loved you,” she said. “She was also tired of waiting for you to become the man you kept promising to become later.”

I heard Isabelle’s voice in that sentence.

Later.

After this problem.

After this year.

After things settled down.

I had believed delay was compromise.

To her, it had been an answer.

“When did you last speak to her?”

“The morning she died.”

My eyes lifted.

“What time?”

“Seven fifteen.”

“What did she say?”

“That she was going to confront someone before she came here.”

“Someone?”

“She did not name him.”

“Did she sound afraid?”

Evelyn thought about it.

“No.”

“Angry?”

“Yes.”

“Did she mention the preschool?”

“She said she had to drop the girls first.”

That matched Keene.

I stood.

Evelyn did too.

“Mr. Romano.”

I paused.

“She left something with me.”

Nico and I exchanged a look.

Evelyn held up a hand.

“Not a confession. Not a recording. Nothing that solves your wife’s murder.”

The fact that she anticipated my hope embarrassed me.

“What?”

“A sealed envelope with revised trust instructions. It was never executed.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

I stared.

“She asked me to destroy it if she died before signing.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I am a lawyer. We are very good at postponing decisions when dead clients give inconvenient instructions.”

Despite everything, I laughed once.

Evelyn’s expression softened.

“The document does not accuse your brother. It only removes him from control of the children’s assets and names an independent fiduciary.”

“That matters.”

“It does. But it does not prove why.”

She was right.

Again.

I was surrounded by irritatingly accurate women.

Back at the mansion, Grace had turned the west guest suite into something that looked less like a safe room and more like a family camp.

Blankets covered the floor.

Nora had built a tent between two chairs.

Sophie was coloring.

Olivia was reading aloud.

Not silently.

Aloud.

I stopped outside the door.

Grace noticed me but did not interrupt.

Olivia finished the page.

Then looked up.

“You can come in.”

Permission.

From my own daughter.

It felt deserved.

I sat near the doorway.

“Good book?”

She shrugged.

“It’s okay.”

A normal answer.

I would have bought the publishing company that printed it if she asked.

I restrained myself.

Progress.

Grace handed me a cup of coffee.

“Any answers?”

“Some.”

“Useful?”

“Painful.”

“Those can be useful.”

I looked at her.

“Is that something you learned in housekeeping school?”

“They covered it right after folding fitted sheets.”

I smiled before I could stop myself.

Olivia noticed.

So did Grace.

Neither commented.

I told Grace only what affected the girls.

Isabelle had been planning changes.

She distrusted Marco.

She had confronted someone that morning.

Grace listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she said, “And what are you going to do?”

“Trace the money.”

“I meant about the girls.”

I should have expected that.

“I’m here.”

“For today.”

The words were not cruel.

They were accurate.

“I canceled everything.”

“Today.”

I set down the coffee.

“You think I should stop working?”

“I think you should decide what you want them to believe when you walk out the door.”

“That I come back.”

“Then show them.”

Across the room, Sophie had stopped coloring.

She was listening.

I lowered my voice.

“I always come back.”

Grace met my eyes.

“Your wife didn’t.”

The sentence hurt.

But not because Grace meant to hurt me.

Because children do not sort absence by intention.

Dead.

Working.

Protecting.

Gone is gone.

I looked at Sophie.

“What time is dinner?”

She blinked.

Grace answered, “Six.”

“I’ll be here.”

Sophie returned to her coloring.

At five fifty-two, I walked into the dining room.

All three girls looked at the clock.

Then at me.

I understood.

This was evidence too.

Different kind.

Dinner was loud.

Nora dropped a fork twice.

Sophie complained about peas.

Olivia told Grace my horse drawing looked like a sick cow.

For the first time in fourteen months, nobody tracked how many words they used.

After dessert, Nico called.

I stepped into the hall but kept the dining room doors open.

“What?”

“We found one of the vendors Evelyn’s office might have been circling.”

“How?”

“Old accounting backups. Isabelle requested statements from three logistics subsidiaries two weeks before she died.”

“Which vendor?”

“Northline Consulting.”

I knew the name.

A bland company paid for risk assessments, port access studies, and compliance reviews.

I had never met anyone from it.

“How much?”

“Just under two million over three years.”

“For what?”

“That’s the fun part.”

“Nico.”

“There’s no work product.”

My jaw tightened.

“Owner?”

“A holding company in Delaware.”

“Keep going.”

“I did.”

He paused.

“The beneficial owner changed six months after Isabelle died.”

“To who?”

“A trust.”

“Nico.”

“I’m getting there.”

I heard paper shift.

“The trust pays one beneficiary.”

I already knew before he said it.

Maybe that was instinct.

Maybe I simply needed the answer to fit.

“Marco Romano.”

I closed my eyes.

Two million dollars did not prove murder.

But it proved Isabelle had not imagined the problem.

It proved Marco had lied about money.

And if she had confronted him the morning she died, his motive was no longer abstract.

Behind me, a chair scraped.

Olivia stood in the doorway.

She had heard my silence, not the call.

“Daddy?”

I turned.

“I’m here.”

Her gaze went to the phone.

Then back to me.

“You’re leaving?”

“No.”

It was the easiest important decision I had made all day.

“I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

Olivia nodded and returned to dinner.

Nico waited.

“You still there?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to come over?”

I looked through the open doors at my daughters.

Grace caught my eye.

“No,” I said.

“Tomorrow.”

I ended the call.

For once, the investigation could wait until morning.

My daughters had spent fourteen months learning that the people they loved could disappear without warning.

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I could not change what happened to Isabelle.

But I could stop teaching them the same lesson.