A familiar method.
“I can have Rebecca explain the separation,” I said.
Daniel’s shoulders tightened.
The word was immediate.
He saw that I had.
“I appreciate the instinct.”
“That sounds like something people say before an unpleasant sentence.”
“It’s my firm, Mom.”
“I need them to decide whether to hire me based on my work and an accurate account of my position. Not because the chairwoman of a hotel group calls.”
I looked at the cold coffee.
He breathed out.
“I hate how much easier it would feel to let you.”
The honesty nearly broke my heart.
That afternoon, he met with the client.
I did not call during the meeting.
I walked the shoreline path with Benjamin instead.
He moved slowly, irritated at a shoe that had apparently developed a personal grievance.
“Your boy worried?” he asked.
“About work?”
Benjamin shrugged.
“Better than being a man who thinks work should never worry him.”
We sat on the bench.
He told me about the first cabinet he had built badly enough that his wife made him keep it.
“So I’d learn.”
“Did you?”
“Not immediately.”
When Daniel finally called, the client had not made a decision.
“They asked reasonable questions.”
“I answered the ones I could. Sent documents through the appropriate channels. Told them I wouldn’t disclose other families’ private financial information to make myself look cleaner.”
“I’m proud of that.”
“Don’t be too proud. I spent ten minutes wishing everyone else would disappear.”
“That sounds hereditary too.”
Later, Leah came to see me.
Not about Daniel’s client.
About Benjamin.
“He’s pretending the damp in the house isn’t bothering him.”
“What does he want?”
“To stay in charge of the discussion.”
“That seems consistent.”
She sat opposite me.
Then, after a pause, she said, “I need something from you.”
“Tell me.”
“Please don’t use me to find out how Daniel is doing.”
My face warmed.
“Have I?”
“Sometimes. Small questions. Whether he seems tired. Whether he’s eating. Whether he’s worried.”
“I care about him. I’m also not a private reporting route.”
The sentence was calm.
It still landed.
Then smiled slightly.
“I think you’re starting to.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Apparently, the island had adopted a phrase.
That evening, the client asked Daniel for one more meeting.
No decision yet.
No dramatic rescue.
And for once, I allowed my son to have a difficult professional day without making my power the solution waiting outside his door.
Chapter 65
Claire Dutton agreed to an interview through her attorney.
That did not mean she had agreed to tell us everything.
Julia warned me before the meeting.
“She may answer some questions and decline others. There are multiple proceedings and her interests are not identical to ours.”
“Knowing it before the meeting will help you avoid discovering it loudly during the meeting.”
She remained perfectly serious.
I deserved that.
Claire appeared remotely.
She looked much as she had in the photograph from the publicity planning session.
Composed.
Unremarkable in the way people become when their work depends on passing through rooms without becoming the subject.
Her role had been larger than the temporary events work I thought she performed.
Finance coordination.
Document routing.
Executive schedule support.
Occasional liaison with outside communications vendors.
Four harmless descriptions.
Together, they had given her access to almost every place where my life became a record.
Julia began with the trip.
Did Claire know Blue Lantern had funded content?
Yes.
Had she coordinated Graham’s visit?
She had placed it on his travel schedule.
Had she known I would arrive the following day?
Where had that information come from?
“My office calendar.”
“Did I authorize using it for the promotional visit?”
The answer was so direct that I looked up.
Claire continued.
“Graham said it was operational coordination.”
“Did you ask me?” I said.
Her attorney shifted slightly.
Claire answered anyway.
“Because asking you would have created a separate approval process.”
There was something terrible about hearing convenience described honestly.
Not an evil plan announced beneath dim lighting.
A person avoiding an extra question because the answer might slow her day.
Julia moved to the incident report.
Claire had forwarded the requested revision.
She had not written every sentence.
The source records would distinguish the roles.
The forged documents were addressed only within the limits agreed by counsel. Claire did not receive a blanket promise that cooperation erased her exposure.
Nor did we pretend that admitting one thing proved every allegation.
Near the end, Julia asked about the copied signature used in Daniel’s false statement.
Claire looked down.
Then toward her attorney.
The answer would come through a separate written response.
I felt anger flare.
The boundary that protected her precisely where I wanted access most.
I let Julia handle it.
Afterward, I went outside.
The sea looked almost offensively beautiful.
I hated that beauty could continue without answering anybody.
Natalie Ellis called through her lawyer that afternoon.
Her father had contacted her again.
He said the expanding inquiry would hurt everyone, including people who thought cooperating made them safe.
She wanted the contact preserved.
She also wanted to know whether she could stop attending meetings that did not require her.
I almost said she should rest.
Then I realized that was another instruction.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“A week without his name in every conversation.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“It feels disloyal.”
“Being his daughter doesn’t make you responsible for keeping him comfortable with the evidence.”
She breathed out.
She laughed weakly.
“You all ask that.”
After the call, I sat with Thomas’s photograph.
Not the business portrait.