Chapter 7 - THE MESSAGE HE NEVER SENT
Inside the envelope were bank statements, notes, and a letter dated three weeks before Nicholas was born.
Roman read the first line twice.
I need you to listen before you let Charles explain this away.
Claire had traced payments from the proposed warehouse buyer to a consulting company. Vivian owned the consulting company. Charles had arranged the introductions and approved the invoices.
The fees were large. The descriptions said almost nothing.
Roman remembered signing documents over dinner while Claire asked him to put down his phone.
He remembered telling her Charles had handled the family’s business for years.
At the bottom of her letter, she had written:
You think trusting him means you don’t have to look. That’s what he’s counting on.
Roman folded the page along its old crease.
Then he called the independent attorney Ortiz had allowed him time to retain, Nora Ellis.
“I have records,” he said. “Some of them may hurt me.”
“Do you want advice or reassurance?”
“Advice.”
“Preserve everything.”
He handed the envelope to her that afternoon.
Meanwhile, the estate’s communications contractor identified the source of the text Elise had shown police. The message came through the household office line, a number staff also saved under Roman’s name.
It wasn’t sent from Roman’s cell phone.
Charles had access to the office messaging account. So did his assistant and the estate manager. It was a lead, not yet proof of who had typed it.
Ortiz made that clear.
“Don’t turn a password list into a conviction.”
“Then find who used it.”
“That’s what we’re doing.”
Later, Elise’s attorney contacted Nora. Elise wanted to correct part of her statement.
Roman listened from the other side of the hospital room while Nora took notes.
“She admits she put him in the car,” Nora said afterward. “She says she expected someone to collect him.”
“Who?”
“Vivian.”
“My sister was taking him where?”
“Elise says she was told it was a family arrangement. The car would be moved. The child would be found in your care, in an unsafe situation.”
Roman’s jaw tightened until it hurt.
“Found by whom?”
Nora looked at her notes again.
“That’s the part she won’t answer yet.”
Across the room, Nicholas opened his eyes.
Roman took his little hand.
May you like
Someone had planned a discovery.
Sophie had simply arrived before the audience.
