Chapter 6: What Dominic Voss Owned
I gave her the paper.
I don't know if that was the right decision.
I made it in three seconds in a cold corridor with Harlan somewhere behind me and a child in an ambulance and a name I couldn't verify burned into my memory.
I gave her the paper, took the card, and walked toward the service exit with my head down and my hands steady.
The night air hit me like cold water.
I walked half a block before I stopped under a streetlight and looked at the card.
The number had a local area code.
Nothing else.
No name.
I dialed.
It rang twice.
"You got out," said a woman's voice.
Low, careful, slightly out of breath.
"Renata?" I said.
A pause.
"She told you my name."
"Yes.
Where are you?"
"Doesn't matter.
Are you alone?"
I looked up and down the street.
A taxi idling at the corner.
A couple walking a dog on the far side.
Nothing else.
"Yes."
"Did you give her the paper?"
"I did."
Another pause, longer this time.
"That's all right.
She already knows his name.
The paper was for you — so you'd understand what you were standing in the middle of." Her voice dropped further.
"Dominic Voss has been trying to remove Oliver from the inheritance structure for eight months.
Since the new will was filed."
"Oliver is a child."
"Oliver is the primary heir to his father's estate.
His father — Cecilia's husband — died fourteen months ago.
The official cause was cardiac failure." She stopped.
"Dominic controls the estate in trust until Oliver turns twenty-five.
If Oliver doesn't reach twenty-five, the estate reverts entirely to Dominic."
The street felt very quiet.
"You're saying he arranged this," I said.
"I'm saying the cake was switched by someone with kitchen access, and the only person at that event with both motive and the authority to arrange kitchen access without Cecilia's knowledge is Dominic Voss." Her voice was flat and precise, like she had rehearsed this.
"I've been collecting documentation for four months.
Financial transfers.
Staff payments.
A meeting between Dominic and a man named Gregor who has a history of contract work that doesn't appear on any legitimate employment record."
"Why haven't you gone to the police?"
"I tried." Something shifted in her voice — not quite bitterness, but close.
"Three months ago.
I brought what I had to a detective who had worked the original investigation into my employer's death.
Two days later I was told the case was closed and the detective had been transferred.
A week after that, someone broke into my flat and took my laptop."
I pressed my back against the wall behind me.
"What do you need from me?" I asked.
"I need a witness," she said.
"Someone who was in that room tonight who has no connection to the Voss family.
Someone who can testify to what they saw in that cake." She paused.
"Someone Dominic doesn't own yet."
Yet.
"He'll come after me," I said.
"Yes," she said simply.
"He will.
Harlan will have your name from the agency by morning.
By afternoon, Dominic will know everything about you." A beat.
"But you have something he doesn't know about."
"What?"
"You have me," she said.
"And I have everything."
A car turned slowly onto the street from the far end.
It wasn't moving fast.
It wasn't moving slow.
It was moving at exactly the speed of someone looking for something.
"Renata," I said.
"A car just turned onto my street."
"Don't run," she said immediately.
"Walk.
Turn left at the next corner and go into the first open shop you see.
I'll call you back in ten minutes."
May you like
The line went d*ad.
I pushed off the wall and walked.
