Chapter 5: What the Room Remembered
The bedroom door was closed but not locked.
He pushed it open without knocking.
Renata was seated at the dressing table, her back to him, watching his reflection in the mirror.
She had a glass of water in her hand that she had not been drinking.
She set it down when he came in.
"She's gone to Mrs.
Pearce," he said.
"Good." Renata turned on the stool to face him.
"Then we can speak properly."
"I spoke to Thomas."
Something moved through her expression.
Not surprise.
"And?"
"He told me eight months.
He told me there were things I should hear from you." Daniel stopped in the center of the room.
He did not sit down.
"So I'm here.
Tell me."
Renata looked at him for a long moment.
Then she stood, smoothed her dress again — that same gesture, automatic, like armor being adjusted — and walked to the window.
"I didn't plan it," she said.
"I'm not interested in how it started."
"Daniel—"
"Lily said he wasn't nice to her." His voice cracked slightly on the word her.
He steadied it.
"What does that mean?
What did he do?"
Renata turned from the window.
For the first time, something in her face shifted toward something that might have been real.
"He never touched her.
I want to be clear about that.
He was — dismissive.
Impatient.
He didn't like having her in the room."
"So you kept her in the room with a man who was impatient with her."
"I didn't think—"
"You didn't think." He said it flatly.
"For eight months, you didn't think."
Renata's chin went up.
The real thing — whatever it had been — retreated behind the composed surface again.
"I'm not going to stand here and be spoken to like I'm on trial."
"Then sit down."
She blinked.
"Sit down, Renata, and tell me what Thomas said I needed to hear from you.
Because I am not leaving this room until I know everything."
She sat.
Not on the dressing table stool.
On the edge of the bed, which was different — less deliberate, less controlled.
She folded her hands in her lap.
"The Harwick account," she said.
Daniel went still.
"What about it?"
"Thomas didn't come to me first." She looked up at him.
"I went to him.
Seven months ago.
Because I had seen something in the account files that I didn't understand, and I didn't know who else to ask."
"You had access to the Harwick files?"
"You left your laptop open.
I wasn't looking for anything.
I saw a transfer — a large one — to an account I didn't recognize.
I thought it was a mistake.
I asked Thomas about it because I thought he would tell you." She paused.
"He didn't tell you."
Daniel's voice was very quiet now.
"What transfer?"
"Three hundred thousand." She held his gaze.
"Moved out of the Harwick operating account into a private holding account.
The name on the holding account was yours.
But the authorization signature—" She stopped.
"Wasnata mine," he said.
She shook her head.
The room was very quiet.
"He forged my signature." Daniel said it slowly, working through it.
"He moved three hundred thousand out of a client account under my name."
"I think there's more than one transfer." Her voice was careful now.
Careful in a different way than before — not self-protective.
Almost reluctant.
"I only saw one.
But the file had multiple entries."
Daniel turned away from her.
He walked to the window and stood where she had been standing.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because Thomas told me not to." She said it quietly.
"He said if I told you, he would tell you about us.
He said you'd lose everything — the firm, the account, your reputation — because your name was on the transfers.
He said the only way to protect you was to let him handle it quietly."
"He was blackmailing you."
"Yes."
"To protect himself."
"Yes."
Daniel turned back around.
He looked at his wife — really looked at her — for the first time since he had walked through the door.
"How long have you been sitting on this?"
"Seven months," she said.
"Almost exactly."
He walked to the door.
Stopped with his hand on the frame.
"I need to make another call," he said.
"Not to Thomas."
"Daniel." Her voice stopped him.
"I know what I did.
I know it doesn't—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I'm sorry.
Not for the right reasons, maybe.
But I am."
He didn't answer.
He walked out and pulled the door closed behind him.
At the bottom of the stairs, he scrolled to a number he had not called in two years.
His lawyer.
His personal one — not the firm's.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Grace," he said.
"I need to see you tonight.
It's about the Harwick account.
And it's about Thomas Aldren."
A pause.
"How bad?" Grace asked.
Daniel looked back up the staircase.
May you like
"I don't know yet," he said.
"But bring everything you have on him."
