Chapter 8: Everything He Knew
I gave him the hour.
Not because I trusted him.
Because the alternative — pushing him in a corridor with thirty guests nearby and no documented record of anything — was worse.
Gerald took him into the east wing study.
I waited in the hall outside with Marco, who had said nothing since the dining room and whose silence I had always found more useful than most people's words.
At the forty-minute mark, Gerald opened the door and looked at me.
"Come in," he said.
Harlan was seated.
He looked smaller than he had in the corridor — not frightened, exactly, but reduced.
Like a man who had been carrying a weight for a long time and had finally accepted that setting it down was the only option left.
Gerald closed the door and stood to the side with his notepad.
"Tell him what you told me," Gerald said to Harlan.
Harlan looked at his hands.
"Reeves approached me fourteen months ago," he said.
"He told me he had a client — he never gave me a name — who needed a quiet arrangement.
Ongoing payments to a private medical firm.
The payments needed to be routed through a third party to keep them off the primary account holder's records." He paused.
"He said it was a monitoring arrangement.
That the client needed to track the health status of a household employee who had become a liability."
The word landed like something dropped from a height.
"A liability," I said.
"His word.
Not mine."
"And you agreed to route the payments."
"I didn't know what it meant at the time.
I told myself it was a medical monitoring service.
Corporate wellness, that sort of thing." He looked up.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like a lie you told yourself."
He didn't argue.
"When did you understand what it actually was?" Gerald asked.
"When Sofia d*ed." Harlan's voice was flat.
"I called Reeves the day after the funeral notice appeared.
I told him I was done.
I told him I wanted my name removed from every document connected to the arrangement." He paused.
"He told me my name had never been on any document.
That I had no proof of any involvement.
And that if I said otherwise, he would make sure the routing records pointed only to me."
"So he threatened you," I said.
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
"I said nothing."
The room was very quiet.
"The second name," I said.
"The one in Sofia's journal.
Who is it?"
Harlan looked at Gerald.
Gerald gave him nothing.
"A woman named Cecile Morrow," Harlan said.
"She's a financial administrator.
She's been managing the household accounts for this estate for the past three years."
I knew the name.
I had hired her through a staffing agency.
She handled payroll, vendor payments, routine transfers.
I had met her twice.
She worked remotely, submitted reports monthly, and had never given me a reason to look closely at her work.
"She processed the payments," Harlan said.
"She knew what they were for.
Sofia found an anomaly in the payroll records and brought it to Cecile directly — asked her what the payments were.
Cecile reported that conversation to Reeves within the hour."
I looked at Gerald.
"Is Cecile Morrow still in this house?"
Gerald nodded slowly.
"She was on the guest list.
She's in the drawing room."
I stood up.
"Marco," I said through the door.
He opened it immediately.
"The woman named Cecile Morrow in the drawing room.
Make sure she doesn't leave."
"Already watching her," he said.
"She tried to call someone twenty minutes ago.
I asked her to put the phone away."
I looked back at Harlan.
"You're going to write down everything you just told me.
Every date, every amount, every conversation with Reeves.
Tonight.
In this room."
"And then?"
"And then we decide what happens to you based on how complete that account is."
Harlan picked up the pen Gerald placed in front of him.
May you like
He didn't ask for a lawyer.
He just started writing.
