Chapter 8
Victor Dane arrived before midnight.
Sixty-one.
Gray hair.
Silver signet ring missing from his right hand.
Grant noticed immediately.
Victor noticed him noticing.
Neither spoke about it.
They sat in the dining room.
Ordinary family table.
No council chamber.
No armed spectacle beyond two guards at the doors.
Grant placed the recovered ring between them.
Victor stared.
“Where?”
“Olivia’s hiding place.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Not guilt.
Grief.
Grant watched carefully.
“You met her.”
“Yes.”
“Secretly.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victor looked toward the staircase.
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
“Renata?”
“Yes.”
“Marcus?”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“Mostly him.”
Grant leaned forward.
“What did she discover?”
Victor looked at the ring.
“Marcus was bringing men into your home while you were away.”
“Who?”
“Associates from crews that should never have known this address.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
His home was intentionally ordinary.
No fortified estate.
No grand gate.
Because Olivia wanted Lily to grow up somewhere that looked like a family lived there.
Marcus had turned that normality into access.
“Why?”
Victor answered:
“To map routines.”
Grant went still.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Silence.
Victor continued.
“Olivia caught one of them upstairs.”
“The gray man?”
“No. Me.”
Grant frowned.
Victor explained.
“She called me after she found a listening device beneath your study desk.”
Grant’s face hardened.
“Why not me?”
“Because she thought Marcus monitored your phone.”
That hurt because it made sense.
Victor continued.
“She asked me to help remove the devices quietly.”
“The blue key?”
Victor looked up.
“Yes.”
Grant’s pulse slowed.
“What does it open?”
“A steel box beneath the garden workshop.”
“Contents?”
“Everything she collected.”
Renata shouted from the sitting room:
“He’s lying!”
Victor didn’t turn.
Grant did.
Renata leaned against the doorway under guard.
“Olivia was sleeping with him.”
Victor’s face tightened.
Renata smiled.
“There. Look at him.”
Grant said nothing.
Renata continued.
“She met him in secret.”
Then to Victor:
“Tell him how many nights.”
Victor stood.
“Watch yourself.”
Renata laughed.
“Oh, now the old hero gets offended.”
Grant raised one hand.
Victor stopped.
Renata looked at Grant.
“You want to believe the dead woman because dead people can’t disappoint you.”
Cruel.
Calculated.
Grant stayed calm.
“What happened the night Olivia died?”
Renata’s smile faded.
Victor answered.
“She called me.”
Grant turned.
“What time?”
“9:12.”
Olivia died around 9:40.
“What did she say?”
Victor hesitated.
“That she had the box.”
Grant leaned forward.
“She found the blue key?”
“No.”
Victor looked toward the jewelry box.
“She hid it.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus was coming.”
Silence.
Grant looked toward the study.
Marcus had heard.
Victor continued.
“Olivia said Marcus knew she had recordings.”
Grant’s voice lowered.
“Did you go to her?”
“I tried.”
“Did you get here?”
“Too late.”
Renata laughed from the doorway.
“How convenient.”
Victor ignored her.
“I saw an ambulance leaving.”
Grant stared.
Victor continued.
“Marcus called me twenty minutes later.”
From the study, Marcus shouted:
“Liar.”
Victor finally turned.
“You told me if I opened my mouth, Lily would lose her father too.”
Silence.
Grant’s entire body went still.
Marcus had made the same threat Lily remembered.
Two witnesses.
Same words.
May you like
And now Grant knew the silence after Olivia’s death had not been accidental.
It had been enforced.
