Chapter 5: What Nathan Knew and What He Didn't
They sat in Dominic's study on the second floor — Dominic behind the desk, Nathan in the chair across from it, Daniel at the window.
The fire had been lit.
Outside, the gray dawn had become a gray morning, the kind that gave no indication of ever intending to clear.
Nathan had a glass of water he hadn't touched.
"Start from the beginning," Dominic said.
"Not from when she came to you.
From before that.
Everything you noticed that you told yourself didn't matter."
Nathan looked at the glass.
"Eight months ago.
Maybe nine." He exhaled.
"She started asking questions about the Montreal accounts.
Not directly.
She'd frame it as curiosity.
'How does the northern distribution work?' 'Who handles the Canadian side?' I thought she was trying to understand your world.
I thought it was what people do when they're about to marry into something complicated."
"And you answered her."
"Not with specifics.
But enough." He finally picked up the glass.
"Four months ago, she asked me about the authorization structure.
What would change legally after the wedding.
I told her it was a standard question for anyone in her position.
I told myself that."
"What else."
"She asked about you.
About your first marriage.
About Elena." Nathan set the glass down.
"She wanted to know how Elena died.
I told her it was an accident.
A car.
She asked who investigated it.
I said our people handled it."
"She was looking for leverage."
"I think she was looking for patterns.
For how you respond when someone close to you is taken." Nathan looked up.
"I think she was building a model of you.
Of how you'd react, what you'd prioritize, where your blind spots were."
Dominic said nothing.
"She found them," Nathan said.
"Mia.
Harper.
She knew you'd protect them.
She knew that was the one thing that would make you move fast without thinking."
"Except she miscalculated."
"She thought you'd come home, find Mia gone, accept the Pennsylvania story, and be distracted by the wedding.
She didn't account for Harper." Nathan's voice dropped slightly.
"A four-year-old who knew her mother would never leave without saying goodbye."
The fire cracked.
Neither man looked at it.
"The name," Dominic said.
"The real one.
The person inside this operation feeding Renner information.
She wouldn't give it to me."
"I know who it is."
Dominic waited.
"It's Carver," Nathan said.
"Paul Carver.
He runs the eastern logistics.
He's been with us eleven years." He paused.
"I found a discrepancy in the routing records six weeks ago.
Small enough to miss if you weren't looking.
I brought it to Claire because I thought she was helping me build a case.
She told me it pointed to me.
That she'd buried it to protect me."
"She used your own evidence against you."
"She flipped it.
Showed me a version of the same document with my authorization code on it.
I don't know if it was forged or if Carver had access to my codes.
Either way, I believed it.
I was so certain I was being protected that I stopped looking."
Dominic stood and walked to the window beside Daniel.
The grounds were empty and white with frost.
The groundskeeper's cottage was visible at the far edge of the tree line.
"Carver," he said.
"He's in the building right now," Daniel said.
"Came in at six.
Normal schedule."
"Keep him there.
Don't let him know anything has changed."
"Yes."
Dominic turned back to Nathan.
"You should have come to me," he said.
"Six weeks ago.
The moment she showed you that document."
"I know."
"You chose to handle it yourself because you were ashamed.
Because you thought you were the one being investigated."
"Yes."
"And a woman spent three days in my cellar because of that choice."
Nathan didn't look away.
"Yes."
The word sat in the room like something physical.
Dominic walked back to the desk.
He picked up his phone and made a call.
"It's me," he said when the line connected.
"I need you at the house.
Bring the documentation team." A pause.
"Yes.
Today."
He ended the call and looked at Nathan.
"You're going to write down every conversation you had with Claire.
Every question she asked.
Every document she showed you.
Every name she mentioned." He set a legal pad on the desk.
"All of it.
In order.
Starting from the first time she approached you."
Nathan reached for the pad.
"And after?" he asked.
"After depends on what's on that paper."
Nathan uncapped the pen and began to write.
Dominic left him there and walked down the hall toward the room where Mia and Harper had been taken to rest.
He stopped outside the door.
Through it, he could hear Harper's voice — small and tired and asking her mother to tell her a story.
Any story.
Just talk so I can hear you.
He stood there for a moment.
Then he walked on.
There was still Paul Carver to deal with.
May you like
And Victor Renner had not yet been told that his plan had failed.
That conversation was coming.
