Chapter 5 - The Man Behind the Door.
Gavin did not enter immediately.
He leaned against the library doorway as if he had wandered in by accident.
“You canceled the staff schedule.”
Adrian placed the transfer record face down.
“I did.”
Gavin looked at Emma.
“Is there a reason the maid is sitting in on family business?”
Emma immediately stepped back from the table.
Adrian noticed the reflex.
“She has a name.”
Gavin gave a small shrug.
“Of course.”
“Use it.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened.
“Emma.”
The room went quiet.
Adrian held up the forged transfer.
“Recognize this?”
Gavin glanced at it.
“No.”
“The authorization code is yours.”
“Then accounting made a mistake.”
“Fourteen times?”
Gavin’s eyes flicked toward Emma.
She looked away.
Adrian saw everything in that glance.
Fear.
Recognition.
And something Gavin clearly did not want Adrian to notice.
“Leave us,” Gavin said to her.
Adrian’s voice cut through the room.
“She stays.”
Gavin exhaled slowly.
“This is becoming theatrical.”
“No.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“It became criminal when somebody forged my signature.”
The word criminal changed Gavin’s posture.
Only slightly.
But Adrian had known him since childhood.
Slightly was enough.
Gavin walked farther into the room.
“You’re tired.”
Adrian’s expression did not change.
“Careful.”
“I’m saying you’ve had a difficult year.”
Emma looked at Adrian, then at Gavin.
Gavin continued.
“You’ve been suspicious since the accident.”
Adrian’s fingers tightened on the armrest.
The accident.
A black SUV had crossed the center line in heavy rain eleven months earlier.
Adrian’s driver had died instantly.
Adrian had survived with a spinal injury that changed everything.
No one had ever identified the other vehicle.
Gavin had handled the investigation while Adrian learned how to move through the world again.
“Why bring that up?” Adrian asked.
Gavin smiled faintly.
“Because you’re turning payroll errors into conspiracies.”
Emma suddenly spoke.
“They aren’t errors.”
Gavin turned toward her.
His face stayed pleasant.
“Excuse me?”
Emma’s hands trembled, but her voice did not.
“My name is on money I never received.”
“That doesn’t mean I stole it.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
The sentence landed harder because it was true.
Gavin’s eyes hardened.
Adrian noticed.
Marcus returned to the library with a phone pressed to his ear.
He looked directly at Adrian.
“We found Luis.”
Emma stepped forward.
“Is he okay?”
Marcus hesitated.
“He’s at a motel outside the city.”
“Why?”
“He says someone paid him five thousand dollars to leave town before sunrise.”
Gavin laughed once.
“That proves nothing.”
Marcus kept looking at Adrian.
“There’s more.”
Luis had taken a picture before leaving the estate.
He had not trusted the person who offered him the money, so he photographed the envelope and the note inside.
Marcus turned his phone around.
The photograph showed five bundles of cash.
Beside them was a typed message.
FOR YOUR FAMILY’S SAKE, LEAVE BEFORE MR. VALE STARTS ASKING QUESTIONS.
Emma’s face drained of color.
Adrian stared at the message.
Then Marcus swiped to the second image.
A man stood near Luis’s truck in the predawn darkness.
His face was mostly hidden.
But the silver signet ring on his right hand was unmistakable.
May you like
Gavin wore the same ring every day.
Except today.
