Chapter 7: What Marta Said Before She Stopped Talking
Marta hadn't gone far.
She was in a coffee shop four blocks from the estate, sitting at a corner table with a small suitcase beside her chair and a cup she hadn't touched.
Garrett's team had found her through the keycard she'd forgotten to leave behind.
It was still registered to the estate's system.
It had pinged a transit reader two streets over at 7:12 a.m.
Marcus went.
He didn't take me.
He didn't need to.
I stayed in the security room with Eleanor and Lily, watching the monitors, and I thought about the woman who had trained me on my first week.
Who had shown me which cleaning products to use on which surfaces.
Who had told me, with complete authority, that the laundry outlet tripped the breaker.
Who had looked me in the eye this morning and said she'd look into it.
Marcus came back an hour later.
He sat down across from his mother.
He was quiet for a moment in the way he got quiet when something had cost him something.
"She talked," he said.
"All of it?" Eleanor asked.
"Enough." He looked at the desk.
"Vanessa approached her fourteen months ago.
She told Marta that the foundation was being mismanaged.
That money was being wasted.
That she was trying to fix it quietly, from the inside, before it became a public embarrassment for the family."
"And Marta believed her."
"Marta wanted to believe her.
There's a difference." He paused.
"Vanessa told her she'd receive a percentage.
Forty thousand dollars when it was done.
Enough to retire on."
"Was she paid?"
"Twenty thousand up front.
The rest was promised after the final transfer cleared this morning." He looked up.
"The transfer that didn't clear.
Because my mother froze the account."
Eleanor said nothing.
"Marta says she didn't know about the shell company.
She says she thought the money was being redirected to a legitimate fund.
She says she never would have—" He stopped.
"She said a lot of things."
"Do you believe her?"
He considered it.
"I believe she told herself a story that let her sleep at night.
I don't know how much of it she actually believed." He looked at me.
"She asked about you.
About Nina."
I looked at him.
"She said she was sorry.
That she didn't know you'd be the one to find it.
That she thought the phone would just be returned quietly and no one would ever—" He stopped again.
"She kept saying she didn't think anyone would get hurt."
"She used me," I said.
"Yes."
"She looked at me this morning and lied to my face."
"Yes."
"And she's sorry because it didn't work.
Not because she did it."
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Eleanor stood up.
"Where is she now?"
"With Garrett.
The financial crjme unit is sending someone this afternoon."
"Good." She picked up her handbag.
"And Vanessa?"
"Her attorney called twenty minutes ago.
She's prepared to cooperate in exchange for reduced charges." His jaw tightened.
"She's offering to name the consulting firm she used to move the money.
Claims there are other clients.
Other foundations."
"She wants a deal."
"She wants to walk away with a fine and a record that doesn't follow her."
Eleanor looked at him steadily.
"Tell her attorney that the Cole family will not be facilitating that arrangement." She moved toward the door.
"We have the transfer records, the access logs, the shell company, and a security camera that watched her take a staff member's phone off a cleaning cart." She paused at the doorway.
"She can cooperate with the authorities on her own terms.
We will cooperate with them on ours."
She left.
The room was quiet.
Lily looked up from the floor.
"Is it over?" she asked.
Marcus looked at her for a moment.
"Not yet," he said.
"But soon."
His phone lit up on the desk.
A name I didn't recognize.
He looked at it.
Something shifted in his face.
May you like
"That's the investigator," he said.
"They've found a fifth account."
