Chapter 4 - The Man on the Other End

My father had been dead for twelve years, but by sunset he had become the most important person in the house.

David asked everyone except me to leave the library.

Victoria objected.

“I’m part of this.”

“No,” David said. “You’re part of something adjacent to this. Go with Daniel.”

She looked at me.

“Julian, if Grant calls—”

“Give Daniel your phone.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

She held it tighter.

David said, “If you want any chance of being treated as a cooperating witness rather than an active participant, this would be a good time to cooperate.”

Her eyes widened.

“You can’t threaten me.”

“I’m not. I’m explaining the landscape.”

After a long pause, she put the phone on the table.

Daniel took it.

She left.

I turned to David.

“Haven.”

He sat down.

“The project name was Harbor Haven.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It never got built.”

“Then why was there a sealed memorandum?”

“Because the project collapsed during the investigation into Samuel Mercer.”

I waited.

David rubbed his thumb along the edge of his glasses.

“My firm represented Sterling. I was a junior associate. Your father discovered irregular payments moving through a land-acquisition subsidiary. Samuel controlled the subsidiary.”

“You said there was an audit.”

“There was.”

“What did it find?”

“Money had been routed to shell vendors. Some vendors were legitimate contractors. Some didn’t exist.”

“How much?”

“Almost six million dollars in nineteen-ninety-nine money.”

I whistled softly.

“And Grant thinks my father framed Samuel?”

“Yes.”

“Did he?”

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

David’s eyes met mine.

“I read the underlying records.”

“Then what is the Haven memorandum?”

“That’s the problem.”

“David.”

“The audit found something else.”

“What?”

“Your father had approved payments he could not explain.”

I felt a chill.

“Illegal payments?”

“Not necessarily. But undocumented.”

“To Samuel?”

“No. To a land trust connected to families living on the Harbor Haven site.”

“Why?”

“Your father said he was compensating residents who had been pressured into below-market sales.”

I stared at him.

“By Samuel?”

“That was the implication.”

“But?”

“But he refused to identify who gave him the evidence.”

“So the board sealed it.”

“They settled with several families, canceled the development, and referred Samuel’s diversion scheme to prosecutors. Samuel accepted a plea on financial charges. The coercion allegations were never tried.”

“And Grant believes the memorandum proves my father stole the company from his father.”

“Grant believes whatever story lets him inherit Samuel’s grievance.”

I walked to the fireplace.

“Where is the memorandum now?”

David hesitated.

“That is why I’m worried.”

“Where?”

“It should be in Sterling’s archival vault.”

“Should be?”

“The index shows it was checked out eleven months ago.”

“By who?”

“Your father’s old authorization code.”

I turned slowly.

“My father’s code.”

“Yes.”

“He is dead.”

“I’m aware.”

“Who still had it?”

“No one was supposed to.”

I laughed once.

“Today is full of things no one was supposed to have.”

My phone buzzed.

Daniel.

I answered.

“Grant is calling Victoria.”

I looked at David.

“Where are you?”

“Security room.”

“Don’t answer yet.”

We crossed the house.

Victoria sat at a metal desk with her arms folded. Her phone vibrated beside her.

The screen showed UNKNOWN CALLER.

She said, “That’s him.”

“How do you know?”

“He blocks the number.”

Daniel asked, “Will you consent to speaker and recording?”

Victoria looked at me.

“What happens if I say no?”

David answered, “Nothing. But cooperation is still cooperation.”

She closed her eyes.

“Yes.”

Daniel started a recording system and nodded.

Victoria answered.

“Hello?”

Grant’s voice came through sharp and controlled.

“What happened?”

Victoria looked at me.

“The wedding is off.”

A pause.

“I know that. Why?”

“Julian heard me.”

Silence.

Then: “How much?”

“Enough.”

“You idiot.”

Victoria flinched.

I saw something then I had ignored before.

Fear.

Not fear of being exposed.

Fear of him.

Grant continued.

“Where’s Brooke?”

“I don’t know.”

“You always know.”

“She left.”

“Did Mason finish?”

Victoria looked at Daniel.

He wrote on a pad: ASK WHAT HE TOOK.

She said, “I don’t know. What was he supposed to take?”

Grant went quiet.

“Don’t play games.”

“I’m not.”

“Where is Julian?”

Her eyes moved to me.

“Downstairs.”

“Is he with Monroe?”

My skin tightened.

He knew David.

“Yes.”

Grant swore.

“Then listen carefully. You leave now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Security.”

Another pause.

“Did you give them your phone?”

Victoria didn’t answer.

Grant’s voice changed.

Softer.

“Vicky.”

She went pale.

“Did you?”

She whispered, “No.”

He laughed.

It was not a pleasant sound.

“You were never good at lying when you were scared.”

Victoria’s hand trembled.

Grant continued.

“If Vance is listening, tell him his father was a thief.”

I leaned closer to the phone.

Victoria looked at me.

I shook my head.

Daniel wrote: KEEP HIM TALKING.

Victoria said, “Grant, what did Mason take?”

“What we needed.”

“The Haven memorandum?”

“No.”

David’s eyes narrowed.

“What, then?” she asked.

“A key.”

“What key?”

Grant laughed again.

“You don’t even know what you were helping me find.”

Victoria’s face crumpled.

“You said this was about proving what happened to your father.”

“It is.”

“You said no one would get hurt.”

“Did anyone?”

“My wedding is gone.”

“That was never your wedding.”

She stared at the phone.

“What?”

“You were an entry point.”

The words were cruel enough that even I felt them.

Victoria whispered, “You said after this we’d be done.”

“We are done.”

“Grant—”

“You should be grateful. I gave you two years in rooms you could never have entered alone.”

Tears slipped down her face.

He kept going.

“You liked the dresses. The trips. The Vance name. Don’t pretend you were sacrificing yourself.”

Victoria looked at me.

I could not rescue her from a truth she had chosen.

She asked, “What key did Mason take?”

Grant sighed.

“The brass one.”

My mind flashed to my desk.

A brass key.

Old-fashioned.

I had kept it in the back compartment because it had belonged to my father.

I hadn’t used it in years.

I stood so fast the chair hit the wall.

Grant heard it.

There was a pause.

Then he said, “Hello, Julian.”

No one moved.

My blood turned cold.

He knew.

Not guessed.

Knew.

I leaned toward the phone.

“Grant.”

Victoria covered her mouth.

Daniel started to object, but David raised a hand.

Grant said, “You sound like your father.”

“You never knew my father.”

“I knew what he did to mine.”

“Your father stole from Sterling.”

“Your father stole Sterling.”

I looked at David.

He shook his head.

“Then show me proof,” I said.

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“By stealing from my house?”

“Your family stole first.”

“You sent a man into a home with a baby inside.”

A pause.

“I told Mason the nursery was off-limits.”

The specificity made me angrier.

“You don’t get credit for boundaries during a burglary.”

Grant laughed.

“Still quick. Your father hated that about you.”

“You know nothing about my father and me.”

“I know he didn’t tell you the truth.”

“What truth?”

“The brass key opens a deposit box he hid under a false name. Inside is the original Haven file.”

David mouthed: KEEP GOING.

I said, “Which bank?”

Grant laughed.

“You think I waited twenty years to hand you the answer?”

“You don’t have the box.”

“Not yet.”

“So Mason stole a key he can’t use.”

“For the moment.”

I heard movement on his end.

Then he said, “Ask Monroe why your father paid him one hundred thousand dollars the week Samuel was indicted.”

I looked at David.

His face drained of color.

Grant hung up.

No one spoke.

Victoria stared at David.

I did too.

“What is he talking about?” I asked.

David sat down slowly.

“It wasn’t a payment to me.”

“That was not my question.”

“It went through my client trust account.”

“For what?”

He looked toward the door.

“Julian, we need privacy.”

“We have privacy.”

“Victoria is here.”

“She already helped steal from me. I’m past protecting family embarrassment.”

David’s jaw tightened.

“The money went to Claire’s mother.”

Everything inside me stopped.

Teresa had entered the doorway without anyone noticing.

She was holding Leo.

Her face had gone completely white.

I looked from David to Teresa.

“Claire’s mother?”

My late wife’s name had not been spoken once that day.

Now it filled the room.

David whispered, “Yes.”

“Why did my father pay Claire’s mother one hundred thousand dollars twenty years ago?”

Teresa closed her eyes.

I turned toward her.

“You know.”

She said nothing.

“Teresa.”

Her arms tightened around my son.

“You know.”

She looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“Claire made me promise not to tell you until it mattered.”

My voice dropped.

“What mattered?”

She swallowed.

“Until someone came looking for the key.”

I stared at Teresa for several seconds before I could speak.

“You had a condition for telling me?”

“Claire did.”

“She’s been dead ten months.”

“I know.”

“And you kept something from me for ten months?”

Teresa’s eyes filled.

“I kept a promise to your wife while I raised her son beside you. I have questioned that promise every day.”

I wanted to be furious.

Part of me was.

But another part heard one word more loudly than the rest.

“Where is it?” I asked.

Teresa looked toward the upstairs hall.

“Not here.”

“What do you mean, not here?”

“I moved it last night.”

Daniel’s head turned sharply.

“Where?”

She took a breath.

“To a place Claire chose before she died.”

May you like

[COMPLETED] She waited ten years for her fiancé, but the night she marri...

[COMPLETED] Five Years After My Mafia Husband Chose Another Woman, He Me...

[COMPLETED] I CALLED MY HUSBAND 18 TIMES WHILE OUR SON WAS DYING. EIGHT...

That was when I understood the day had one more secret left in it.

And this one belonged to the woman I had trusted most before Victoria ever entered my life.