Chapter 7: What Royce Left Behind
They found Royce the next morning.
Daniel called me at 8:04 a.m.
I was in the kitchen making Caleb's breakfast.
The same kitchen.
The same table.
Caleb was pushing cereal around his bowl and telling me about a dream involving a very large dog.
I stepped into the hallway to take the call.
"They picked him up at a motel forty minutes from your house," Daniel said.
"He had the bag with him."
"What was in it?"
A pause.
"The detectives aren't releasing the full inventory yet.
But they told me enough." Another pause.
"It wasn't medical equipment."
I leaned against the hallway wall.
"He's talking," Daniel said.
"Apparently he started talking before they even finished reading him his rights.
Named Mason as the contact.
Named the shell account.
Confirmed both payments." He stopped.
"He confirmed the window.
6:45 departure, target alone on the back road to the highway."
I took the back road every morning.
It was quieter.
I had taken it for two years.
"He knew the route," I said.
"He'd driven it three times.
He knew exactly where—" Daniel stopped himself.
"You don't need the details."
"No," I said.
"I don't."
Caleb called from the kitchen.
"Daddy, my cereal is getting soggy."
"One minute, bud."
I heard him sigh with the full dramatic weight of a four-year-old whose breakfast was in crisis.
"Mason is being charged this morning," Daniel said.
"Conspiracy, solicitation, fraud for the account.
The DA is looking at the full picture."
"And Sienna?"
A longer pause.
"Same charges.
Plus the fraud.
Her lawyer is already talking about cooperation." He paused again.
"She'll probably get a deal if she gives them everything on Royce's network."
I thought about the tired look on her face when she sat down at the table.
Not guilt.
Not fear.
Tired.
Like someone who had been carrying something for a long time and had finally set it down in the worst possible place.
"Does the deal affect the criminal charges?" I said.
"It affects sentencing.
Not the charges themselves."
"Okay."
"There's one more thing," Daniel said.
"The inheritance.
The estate lawyer contacted me this morning because your name was flagged in the fraud investigation.
He wanted to confirm your status." He paused.
"As Sienna's legal spouse, you're still entitled to half her portion under the will's terms.
That doesn't change because of the criminal case."
I hadn't thought about the money once since last night.
"I don't want it," I said.
"I know.
But you should know it's there."
"Put it in a trust for Caleb.
Whatever the lawyers need to do.
I don't want to touch it."
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"I'll make some calls."
I went back to the kitchen.
Caleb looked up at me with the expression of someone who had been deeply wronged by the passage of time.
"It's very soggy now," he said.
I took the bowl, poured it out, and made him a fresh one.
He watched me do it with great seriousness.
Then he said, "Is Mommy coming home?"
I sat down across from him.
"Not for a while, bud."
He thought about that.
"Is she in trouble?"
"Yes."
He nodded slowly.
The way kids nod when they already knew the answer and just needed an adult to confirm it.
"She was doing bad things."
"Yes."
"To you."
"Yes."
He looked at his cereal.
"I didn't want to call Mason 'Dad,'" he said.
"I told her I didn't want to.
She said I had to practice anyway."
My hand tightened around my coffee mug.
"You don't have to call anyone that," I said.
"Ever.
Unless you want to."
He looked up.
"You're my dad."
"Yeah," I said.
"I am."
He picked up his spoon.
Seemed satisfied.
May you like
Went back to his cereal.
I sat there and watched him eat and tried to remember the last time something had felt that simple and that enormous at the same time.
