Chapter 8: What Marcus Said
He called at noon.
I was sitting in Grace's office downtown when my phone lit up.
International number.
Singapore prefix.
Grace saw my face.
"Is that him?"
"Yes."
"Put it on speaker.
Don't tell him I'm here."
I answered.
"Daniel." Marcus's voice was exactly the same.
Unhurried.
Easy.
As if he were calling about Christmas plans.
"I heard you had an interesting night."
"Calvin called you."
"Calvin is very thorough.
It's one of the things I've always appreciated about him." A pause.
"I think we should talk."
"We're talking now."
"In person.
I can be in Nashville by Thursday."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Marcus."
A short silence.
The first one that felt uncontrolled.
"Daniel.
Whatever you think you found — I want you to consider what happens to the girls if this becomes a legal matter.
Court proceedings.
Depositions.
Their father's finances and private life examined in public record.
Rosalyn is three years old.
Do you want her name in a filing?"
Grace's hand moved to her notepad.
She wrote one word: *Threat.*
"The girls are fine," I said.
"Right now they are.
But these things have a way of expanding.
I'm trying to protect the family.
That's all I've ever been trying to do."
"By taking money from my household accounts for four years."
"By ensuring that the infrastructure around you was properly compensated.
You have no idea how many problems I solved before they reached you.
How many relationships I maintained.
How many times I made a call so you didn't have to."
"And Elena?"
The silence this time was different.
"Elena was sick," he said.
"The aneurysm was real.
The doctors confirmed it."
"She recorded you, Marcus.
In this house.
The day before she d*ed."
Nothing.
"She recorded you telling her that the girls would be fine as long as she stayed quiet.
She recorded you saying you were collecting what was owed to you.
She left it on a USB drive in a box that Calvin didn't find because Hilda hid it."
The silence stretched long enough that I thought the call had dropped.
Then: "What do you want?"
Grace wrote on her notepad and turned it toward me: *Keep him talking.*
"I want to understand," I said.
"I want to know how long.
I want to know if you were in this house the night she d*ed.
I want to know what you gave her."
"I didn't give her anything."
"Then tell me what happened."
"It was an aneurysm, Daniel.
I was there because I was worried about her.
She had been asking questions and I came to talk to her.
That's all."
"That's not what she believed."
"She was frightened and she misunderstood a conversation—"
"She was a careful woman who photographed a shadow ledger and recorded a forty-seven-minute conversation and sealed the evidence in a box and gave it to her housekeeper with specific instructions.
That is not a woman who misunderstood anything."
Marcus's breath came through the speaker.
"You can't prove I did anything to her."
"I don't need to prove it alone.
Sgt.
Marsh at Metro Nashville is already looking at it.
The medical examiner's office has been contacted about a review."
"A review based on what?
A recording of a conversation?
A photograph of a man at a gate?"
"And a nurse who was dismissed before dawn by your employee.
And a ledger showing four years of fraud.
And a voice recording in which you told my wife her children's safety was contingent on her silence." I kept my voice level.
"That's what it's based on."
Another long silence.
"I built everything you have," Marcus said.
His voice had finally changed — the ease gone, something raw underneath.
"You were twenty-six years old and you had one good idea and no idea how to protect it.
I spent eight years making introductions, calling in favors, managing people who would have eaten you alive.
And you gave me nothing.
A salary through Calvin.
A percentage so small it was an insult.
You didn't even know what you owed me."
"You could have asked me."
"I did ask you.
Three times.
You told me the business was doing well and you'd revisit it next quarter.
Every time.
Next quarter.
For eight years."
"So you took it."
"I took what was fair."
"And Elena?"
The rawness in his voice closed back down.
"I want a lawyer present before I say anything else."
"That's probably wise," I said.
"Because Grace Holt is sitting across from me right now, and Sgt.
Marsh has already requested your travel records."
The call ended.
Grace looked at me across the table.
"He admitted to the financial arrangement," she said.
"Not in those words, but enough.
Combined with the ledger and the recording—" She paused.
"And the medical examiner review — Daniel, if there is anything to find, they will find it now."
I set the phone on the table.
"He said he asked me three times."
"Did he?"
I thought back.
Eight years.
Three conversations I had half-remembered as general complaints, requests I had noted and filed away and returned to the business at hand.
"Maybe," I said.
"I don't know."
"That doesn't justify any of this."
"No.
It doesn't." I looked at the phone.
"But I want to know if it's true."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
"You can want to know and still hold him accountable.
Those aren't the same decision."
I picked up the phone and put it in my pocket.
"How long before the medical examiner can give us anything?"
"Weeks, possibly.
Maybe longer.
These reviews take time." She looked at me carefully.
"Are you prepared for what they might find?"
I thought about Elena's voice on the recording.
The steadiness of it.
The way she had set the phone on the table before Marcus arrived, because she had already decided what she needed to do.
She had known she might not survive the night.
She had recorded it anyway.
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"I'm prepared."
