Chapter 4: What Sofia Knew
My attorney, Gerald Foss, arrived forty minutes later.
He was sixty-three, wore the same style of dark suit he had worn for twenty years, and never asked unnecessary questions.
I valued that about him.
I met him in the front hall while Marco kept Vivienne in the east wing study, the door closed.
"She has documents," I said.
"Taken from a locked file room.
Staff payroll records, household contracts, and something else — she described it as records Sofia kept about financial transfers I made three years ago."
Gerald's expression didn't change.
"Which transfers?"
"The Meridian restructure.
The Calder account reallocation."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Those were legal."
"I know they were legal."
"Then what's her leverage?"
"I don't know yet.
But she believed she had some."
He nodded slowly.
"All right.
Let me speak with her."
We walked back to the east wing together.
Marco stepped aside.
Gerald opened the door.
Vivienne was seated at the desk, composed again, the paperweight back in its place.
She looked at Gerald with the mild interest of someone who had dealt with attorneys before and found them manageable.
"Ms.
Ashworth," Gerald said.
"I'm told you removed documents from this room."
"I borrowed them," she said.
"For safekeeping."
"Where are they now?"
"Somewhere safe."
"That's not an answer."
"No," she agreed pleasantly.
"It isn't."
Gerald glanced at me.
I gave him nothing.
He turned back to Vivienne.
"Ms.
Ashworth, removing documents from private property is theft.
Whatever you believe those documents contain, possession of them does not give you leverage.
It gives you criminal exposure."
Vivienne folded her hands on the desk.
"Sofia Carter kept a personal journal.
Separate from the official household records.
She wrote in it every week for six years.
I have that journal."
The room went very still.
"Sofia described, in considerable detail, a conversation she overheard between Damian and a man named Reeves.
August, three years ago.
In this house.
In this room." She looked at me.
"Would you like me to continue?"
"Say what you came to say."
"Reeves told you that one of your household staff had seen something they shouldn't have.
You told him to handle it quietly." She paused.
"Sofia believed you were talking about her."
I stared at her.
"That's what she wrote," Vivienne said.
"That she was afraid.
That she had started keeping records because she was afraid of what you might do."
The silence stretched.
Gerald spoke first.
"That is a serious allegation based on a private journal written by a woman who is no longer alive to clarify her meaning."
"Which is exactly why the journal is valuable," Vivienne said.
"Imagine what a journalist would do with it.
Or a detective."
I walked to the desk and stood directly in front of her.
"Reeves was my insurance broker," I said.
"The staff member he mentioned was a groundskeeper who had been photographing the property for a competitor.
I terminated his contract.
That is what Sofia overheard.
That is all she overheard."
Vivienne held my gaze.
"Can you prove that?"
"Reeves is still alive.
He's in Connecticut.
I can have him on the phone in ten minutes."
For the first time, something flickered across her face that wasn't calculation.
It was doubt.
"You went into a de@d woman's room," I said quietly.
"You took her ring off her finger before she was cold.
You took her journal.
You took her records.
And you brought all of it to my engagement dinner as a weapon." I leaned forward slightly.
"What else did you take, Vivienne?"
She said nothing.
May you like
But her hand — the one with Sofia's ring — moved to her lap.
And Gerald, standing behind me, quietly took out his phone.
