Chapter 6: The Woman Who Had Been Waiting
"How do you have this number?" I asked.
"Adrian gave it to me," Sandra Reeves said.
"Eighteen months ago, when he was trying to add you to a joint liability structure.
He needed me to draft the paperwork." A pause.
"I refused."
Maya was watching me from the driver's seat.
I held up one finger — wait.
"You refused," I repeated.
"What he was asking me to do was not legal.
I told him that.
He found someone else." Her voice was even and precise, the voice of someone who had rehearsed this conversation many times.
"I kept the file."
"Why are you calling me now?"
"Because I've been monitoring the police scanner for the past two hours.
And because the moment I heard the address, I knew tonight was the night this was going to surface." Another pause.
"I should have called you fourteen months ago.
I'm calling you now."
I looked out the windshield at the dark street.
"What's in your file?"
"The original draft of the power of attorney.
Adrian's instructions to me, in writing, via email.
The specific accounts he wanted access to.
The loan structure he was attempting to build." She stopped.
"And a name he mentioned as his financial contact.
The person who was helping him move the money once it was extracted."
"Who?"
"A man named Gerald Foss.
He runs a small private wealth firm in Marin.
He and Charles Ashworth have been associates for over twenty years."
The name meant nothing to me.
But the connection did.
"This goes back further than Adrian," I said.
"Yes," Sandra said.
"I believe Adrian learned this from his father.
Charles has done variations of this before.
A previous business partner, fifteen years ago.
It was settled privately.
No charges." She paused.
"The family has a pattern, Claire.
Adrian didn't invent it.
He inherited it."
I pressed my hand against the cold window glass.
"Will you give your file to the detective?" I asked.
"That's why I'm calling.
I need your permission to act as your attorney and hand this material over directly.
If you want someone else to represent you, I understand.
But I have the documentation.
And I have the timeline.
And I am very, very tired of sitting on it."
I looked at Maya.
She couldn't hear the other side of the call, but she was watching my face.
"Yes," I said to Sandra.
"You have my permission."
"Good.
I'll contact Detective Reyes tonight.
Don't go to the marital residence without documenting everything you touch.
Take photographs before you move anything." A brief pause.
"And Claire — change your banking passwords before you sleep tonight.
All of them."
"Already planned."
"Good." Something shifted in her voice — not warmth exactly, but something adjacent to it.
"You handled yourself well tonight.
I read the dispatch report."
"I had help," I said.
I ended the call.
Maya started the engine.
"Who was that?"
"An attorney who should have called me fourteen months ago." I put the phone in my lap.
"She has documentation.
Emails from Adrian.
A name — someone who was helping him move money.
Someone connected to Charles."
Maya's hands tightened on the wheel.
"How far back does this go?"
"Far enough that Charles has done it before." I looked at her.
"Did Liam ever mention a man named Gerald Foss?"
Her face changed.
"Liam plays golf with a Gerald," she said slowly.
"Once a month.
I've never met him.
Adrian introduced them." She stared at the road.
"He introduced them two years ago."
Two years ago.
Right around the time Liam had found the second set of accounts and Adrian had told him it was a legal investment structure.
Right around the time Liam had started trusting his brother's financial explanations.
"Maya," I said carefully.
"Is Liam's name on anything in that folder?"
She didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know," she said.
"I didn't read every page.
I was afraid to."
We drove in silence for a moment.
"We need to find out," I said.
"I know."
"If his name is on something—"
"I know, Claire." Her voice cracked slightly.
She pressed her lips together.
"I know what it means."
I didn't push.
There was enough weight in the car already.
We turned onto the freeway.
The city lights spread out ahead of us — ordinary and indifferent, as though nothing had happened tonight.
As though the world had not shifted several degrees on its axis over a dinner table and a porcelain plate and six words whispered in a room full of people who had chosen, for years, to look away.
My phone buzzed again.
A text this time.
From a number I recognized.
Adrian's number.
*You are making a catastrophic mistake.
Call me.
We can still fix this.*
I read it once.
Then I turned my phone face-down on my knee.
"Anything important?" Maya asked.
"No," I said.
"Nothing important at all."
But when we pulled up to the marital residence twenty minutes later and I stepped out of the car, I saw that the front door was standing open.
I had locked it that morning.
I was certain of it.
Maya came around the car and stopped beside me.
We both looked at the open door.
May you like
At the light spilling out from inside.
Someone was already in there.
