Chapter 6: What Beatrice Built
Garrett Foss arrived at eleven-forty with a colleague named Patricia Wen, who handled white-collar crjme and, as it turned out, unlawful imprisonment.
Dr.
Anand arrived twelve minutes later.
Dominic met them in the foyer and took Garrett and Patricia upstairs first.
He opened the east wing door and let them see the room, the keypad lock, the setup.
Patricia walked the space without speaking, her eyes moving from the lock to the window — sealed, he noticed now, the latch removed — to the small bathroom visible through an interior door.
"How long?" Patricia asked.
"Twenty-two months," Dominic said.
She wrote something in a small notebook.
"Who else in the household had knowledge?"
"The housekeeper, Mrs.
Hargrove.
And a physician who signed a false death certificate."
"Do you have the physician's name?"
"My mother does."
Patricia looked at him steadily.
"Mr.
Vale, I want to be clear about something before we go further.
What happened in this room is a serious felony.
Unlawful restraint.
Falsifying a death record.
Conspiracy.
Your mother will face criminal exposure.
So will the physician and the housekeeper."
"I know."
"And depending on the nature of the documents your wife possessed and your mother's stated motivation for this — there may be questions about your own prior knowledge."
"I had no knowledge of this."
"I believe you," Patricia said.
"But we need to be prepared for that question."
Dominic nodded once.
They went back to the corridor.
Beatrice was sitting in the chair Marsh had placed outside the door — not restrained, not under arrest, but not going anywhere.
She looked at Garrett when he appeared.
"Garrett," she said.
"I'd like to speak with you privately."
"Mrs.
Vale," Garrett said carefully, "I represent Dominic.
I can't—"
"I know who you represent." Her voice was perfectly composed.
"I'm asking as a courtesy.
Old times."
"There are no old times tonight," Dominic said.
Beatrice looked at her son.
Something moved across her face — not guilt, not quite.
Something older and harder, the expression of a person who has made a calculation and is now watching the results arrive.
"I did what I believed was necessary," she said.
"You imprisoned a woman," Dominic said.
"You kept my son from his mother for two years.
You let me believe she was d*ad.
You let Oliver believe she was d*ad."
"Oliver was too young to understand—"
"He understood enough to spend fourteen months screaming at strangers until they left." Dominic's voice was very quiet.
"He understood enough to keep her secret.
He understood enough to know that every adult in this house was either complicit or blind." He paused.
"He was four years old, and he was the only honest person in this building."
Beatrice said nothing.
"The Harmon contracts," Dominic said.
"You told me you were protecting me from them.
But Celeste wasn't going to the press.
She was leaving.
So tell me the truth — what were you actually protecting?"
A long silence.
"The company," Beatrice said finally.
"That's not what I asked."
Another silence.
Longer.
"Control," she said.
The word came out flat, almost clinical.
"If she left and took Oliver, you would have followed.
I know you.
You would have left the company, left Chicago, gone wherever she went.
Everything I spent thirty years building would have passed to board members and lawyers." She looked at her hands.
"I couldn't allow that."
Dominic stared at his mother.
"So you chose the company over your son's wife.
Over your grandson's mother.
Over two years of a child's life."
Beatrice didn't answer.
May you like
"Patricia," Dominic said without looking away from his mother.
"Please proceed however you need to."
