Chapter 5: What Richard Built in the Dark
I called the one person I trusted completely.
My attorney, Clara Voss, picked up on the second ring.
It was past ten on a Saturday night and she answered like she had been expecting the call.
"I need you at the Meridian Hotel," I said.
"Third floor sitting room.
Now."
"Give me twenty minutes."
I hung up and looked at Naomi.
"Does Richard know about Clara?"
"I don't think so.
He never mentioned her."
"Good."
Naomi was watching me with an expression I couldn't fully read.
Something between relief and a new kind of worry.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"I'm thinking he's had fifteen years to build whatever he built.
I've had forty minutes." I stood and moved to the window.
Portland spread out below, indifferent and bright.
"I need to understand the full structure before I move.
If I go at him wrong, he buries the evidence and claims I'm having a breakdown over a paternity surprise."
"He'll try that anyway."
"Probably.
But there's a difference between him trying it and him succeeding." I turned back.
"The private portfolio my mother had him managing.
Do you know anything specific about it?
Account names, institutions, anything?"
Naomi was quiet for a moment.
"After Eleanor threatened me, I didn't fight it.
I just — disappeared into the city.
I found a small apartment in Sellwood.
I had Mia.
I went back to work part-time when she was eight months old, private therapy contracts, nothing institutional, nothing that would put me back in Eleanor's orbit." She paused.
"But two years ago, one of my former colleagues reached out.
She'd been at Eastside Children's the whole time.
She told me she'd seen Richard there.
Not as a visitor.
As a board member."
I turned from the window.
"Richard is on the Eastside Children's board."
"He joined four years ago.
The same year the Drake Children's Center campaign launched."
The Drake Children's Center.
The project I had built from Naomi's ideas.
The project I had poured everything into after she vanished, because it was the only place I could put the grief.
"He used the campaign," I said slowly.
"He used the capital campaign to move money."
Naomi's eyes were steady.
"I don't know that for certain.
But I know that the original campaign target was eight million.
You raised fourteen.
And the final construction budget was approved by a joint committee — Drake Architecture and the Eastside Foundation board."
"Which Richard sat on."
"Yes."
A knock at the door.
I opened it.
Clara Voss stood in the hallway in a dark coat, her silver reading glasses already pushed up on her head, a leather notebook in her hand.
She had been my attorney for nine years.
She had seen me through the Drake Architecture incorporation, three major contract disputes, and the death of my father.
She looked past me at Naomi and Mia's sleeping form on the sofa and absorbed the scene without a word.
"Come in," I said.
She came in.
I closed the door.
"Start from the beginning," she said, opening her notebook.
"Don't summarize.
I need everything."
I told her everything.
It took thirty-five minutes.
Clara wrote without stopping.
When I finished, she sat back and looked at her notes for a long moment.
"The letter," she said.
"You have it physically."
"Yes."
"With the attachment.
Eleanor's note.
The figure in the margin."
"Yes."
"Don't let it out of your hands tonight." She looked at Naomi.
"The colleague who told you about Richard's board membership.
Is she still at Eastside Children's?"
"As far as I know."
"I'll need her name." Clara made a note.
"The private portfolio Richard managed for Eleanor.
That's the thread I want.
If there's a financial arrangement between them that predates his introduction of you to Naomi, it establishes motive and premeditation.
That changes the character of everything else."
"Can you get access to that?"
"Not tonight.
But I know someone at the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation who owes me a professional courtesy." She looked up.
"Julian, I need you to understand something.
What you've described — the intercepted letter, the threat to Naomi's employment, the potential misappropriation of campaign funds — each of those is serious individually.
Together, they represent a pattern.
A deliberate, sustained effort to control your life and your assets." She paused.
"Richard is going to know, very soon if he doesn't already, that you've connected the pieces.
He will move tonight."
"Move how?"
"Documents.
Electronic records.
The campaign financials.
Anything that shows the flow of money between him and Eleanor." She closed her notebook.
"I need you to do one thing right now.
Tonight.
Before you leave this building."
"What?"
"Go downstairs.
Find Richard.
Have a completely normal conversation with him.
Don't accuse.
Don't hint.
Be the Julian Drake who just had an emotional evening and needs his old friend's steadiness." She held my gaze.
"While you do that, I'm going to make three phone calls."
I looked at Naomi.
She nodded once.
Small.
Certain.
I straightened my jacket.
"How long do you need?" I asked Clara.
"Fifteen minutes."
I went to the sofa and crouched beside Mia.
She was deeply asleep, her notebook still tucked under her chin, her small chest rising and falling.
I had missed six years.
I was not going to miss another night.
I stood, looked at Naomi one more time, and walked out the door.
Richard was at the bar.
He was talking to two guests I didn't know, his posture relaxed, his laugh easy.
He saw me coming from across the room and his expression shifted into something warm and relieved.
"There he is," he said to the guests.
"Give us a minute?"
They drifted away.
Richard handed me a glass of water without being asked.
"How are you holding up?"
"It's been a night," I said.
"I can imagine." He studied me.
"How's Naomi?"
"Tired.
Mia's asleep upstairs."
"Sweet kid." He took a sip of his drink.
"What happens now?"
"I don't know yet.
I need to think."
"Of course." He nodded slowly.
"For what it's worth, Julian — whatever happened six years ago, however Naomi ended up back in Portland — what matters now is that little girl.
Everything else is history."
He said it with complete conviction.
The warmth in his voice was real.
That was the thing about Richard.
The warmth was always real.
It just existed alongside everything else.
"You're right," I said.
He clapped a hand on my shoulder.
"Get some rest.
We'll talk Monday."
"Monday," I agreed.
I set the water glass down and walked back toward the elevator.
Behind me, I heard Richard's phone buzz against the bar.
May you like
He picked it up immediately.
That was the moment I knew Clara's calls had already started landing.
