Chapter 12 - THE FRIEND WHO KNEW TOO MUCH|
Nobody moved.
Nathan stared at the page as though he had never seen his own name before.
Alexander took the notebook from him.
“Explain.”
Nathan swallowed.
“I don't know why it's there.”
“Your name is listed beside payments.”
“I never received money from Victor.”
Alexander's voice dropped.
“Then why does this say you did?”
Nathan looked at me.
“Claire, I swear—”
“Don't swear,” I said. “Explain.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“My father worked for Victor. Years ago, he managed some of the property accounts. When he died, I inherited his files. I gave everything to Alexander.”
“Did you know what was in them?”
“No.”
“Did you know your father was connected to Daniel Reynolds?”
Nathan hesitated.
That hesitation answered more than his words could have.
Alexander stepped closer.
“You knew?”
“My father told me something before he died.”
“What?”
Nathan looked toward the front windows.
“He said Daniel wasn't killed because he discovered the money. He was killed because he had proof of who ordered it.”
“Who?”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Your grandfather.”
The silence was absolute.
Alexander looked as if the floor had shifted beneath him.
“My grandfather was dead before I took over.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe Victor was responsible.”
“I didn't know the whole story.”
“Then what did your father tell you?”
Nathan's voice broke.
“He said your grandfather ordered the accident. Victor arranged it. And someone in the Reynolds family helped cover it up.”
I looked at Sophia's photograph in my bag.
“Who?”
Nathan shook his head.
“He didn't say.”
Alexander walked away.
I could see the anger in his shoulders, but there was something else beneath it: grief.
His grandfather had raised him. The old man had taught him how to negotiate, how to read a room, how to make people fear him without raising his voice.
Now the notebook suggested that the same man had ordered a death.
The police arrived and secured the house. They questioned all of us separately. Nathan gave a statement. Alexander surrendered the notebook and agreed to provide the financial records connected to Victor.
I watched him do it.
He looked at the officers as if every instinct in him was telling him to refuse.
But he signed the documents.
Later, when we were alone in the temporary residence, he stood by the window.
“I thought I knew him.”
“You knew the man he wanted you to know.”
He turned.
“Do you hate me?”
I considered the question.
“I don't know what I feel anymore.”
He nodded.
“I deserve that.”
I sat down slowly.
“Alexander, I need you to understand something. I didn't leave because Sophia came back. I left because you showed me exactly where I stood in your life.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
“No. You know it hurt me. You don't know what it did to me. I spent years believing that if I was patient enough, you would eventually stop hiding me.”
He looked at me.
“I should have made you my wife in every room, not just behind closed doors.”
“Yes.”
“I can't change that.”
“No.”
“But I can stop asking you to pretend it didn't happen.”
I looked down at my stomach.
“That's a beginning.”
He nodded.
Then his phone rang.
He listened without speaking.
When he ended the call, his face had gone pale.
“Sophia has disappeared.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Her apartment is empty. Her car was found near the river.”
Nathan appeared in the doorway.
“There's more,” he said.
He held up his phone.
A photograph showed Sophia sitting in the passenger seat of a car.
May you like
A man was driving.
The man was Victor Hale.
