Chương 7
“You knew this was here,” Theodore said.
“No.”
“You knew Rosalie had records.”
“I suspected.”
“What is in the letter?”
Sebastian looked at Cole. “May I see it?”
“No.”
“It is addressed to me.”
“It was found in a concealed location connected to an active investigation.”
Sebastian’s attorney began speaking about privilege and ownership. Cole asked an officer to escort both men outside.
Before he left, Sebastian turned to Theodore. “Whatever you think you have found, do not give it to the press.”
“Why?”
“Because Rosalie gathered it for a reason. Let her decide what becomes public.”
“You mean let you decide.”
“No.” Sebastian glanced toward the evidence bag containing the letter. “I mean there are truths that injure the guilty and the innocent with equal efficiency.”
Theodore almost laughed. It sounded exactly like something a guilty rich man would say.
That evening, Rosalie spoke for the first time without a tube in her throat.
Her voice was rough and faint. Theodore sat beside the bed while Dr. Shah adjusted the angle of her pillow. A police officer remained outside the room. Sebastian and Eleanor had been barred from visiting at Rosalie’s request.
“You look terrible,” Rosalie said.
Theodore bent his head. “You were in a coffin.”
“I have an excuse.”
“So do I.”
Her eyes moved to his bandaged knuckle. “You hit it?”
“The glass.”
“With what?”
“A mallet.”
“A normal response.”
“I thought so.”
She closed her eyes for several breaths. Even speaking three words seemed to exhaust her.
“I’m sorry,” Theodore said.
“For breaking the coffin?”
“For the text.”
Her eyes opened. “I was angry.”
“You had a right.”
“I was still angry.”
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Who did it?”
Rosalie looked toward the door.
“No one can come in,” he said.
“That isn’t what I’m checking.”
“What are you checking?”
“Whether I want to say it.”
He waited.
She swallowed and winced. “Eleanor gave me tea in the guesthouse.”
“What kind?”
“The kind with poison, apparently.”
“Rosalie.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Not especially.”
A breath that might have become a laugh moved through him and failed.
Rosalie continued. “I confronted her about Arclight. She cried. Then she got angry that she was crying. She said Sebastian had known for months and was moving money to cover it.”
“Did he?”
“I found transfers from his personal accounts into the foundation. He replaced some of what was missing.”
“Why?”
“To keep auditors from noticing. To keep the board from asking why Eleanor approved fake programs.”
“So he protected her.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know she drugged you?”
Rosalie stared at the blanket. “I woke up on the floor. I couldn’t move properly. Eleanor was kneeling beside me. Adrian came in. They argued.”
“Dr. Mercer?”
“She told him I had taken something. He checked my pulse. I heard him say it was too slow.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing for a while. I kept losing time.”
“Did Sebastian come?”
“I heard his voice later.”
“What did he say?”
Rosalie’s brow tightened. “He said, ‘Don’t make me choose.’”
“To Eleanor?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they do to your mouth?”
Her hand rose weakly toward the bruise. “I woke in a vehicle. Eleanor was there. I tried to call out. She pressed the satin between my teeth and tied it. Not hard at first. She kept saying I would ruin everyone.”
Theodore stood and moved away from the bed because the need to break something had become physical.
Rosalie watched him. “Sit down.”
“I can’t.”
“Then stand still.”
He pressed both palms against the windowsill.
“Did Sebastian see you alive?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he touch you?”
“Maybe. Someone carried me.”
“Was he there when they put you in the coffin?”
“I couldn’t see. I heard Eleanor. Adrian. Another man.”
“Halpern.”
“Maybe.”
Theodore turned. “Sebastian says he believed you were dead.”
“I believed I was dead too, at certain points.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“No.”
“Why the ventilation ornament?”
Rosalie’s eyes shifted toward him. “What ornament?”
“The coffin had a silver vent.”
“I don’t know.”
Theodore pictured the small silver fitting near the foot of the coffin. At the memorial, he had assumed it was decorative. Air must have entered through it, not much, but enough.
Rosalie’s fingers tightened in the blanket. “Theo, the glasshouse.”
“We found it.”
“All of it?”
“Binders, a hard drive, phones, a letter.”
Her eyes closed in relief, then opened again. “The letter is for Sebastian.”
“I know.”
“Do not leak it.”
Theodore stared at her. “He told me the same thing.”
“Then one of us has excellent judgment.”
“Why are you protecting him?”
“I am not.”
“Then what is in it?”
“The truth about Dad.”
Theodore sat slowly.
Their father had died after an evening foundation gala. The police concluded he had been drinking, lost control of his car, and struck the bridge barrier at high speed. Theodore had spent a year refusing to call it suicide, then another six months pretending he no longer cared which word people used.
“What truth?” he asked.
Rosalie looked older than twenty-five under the hospital lights. “He started taking money from the foundation before Eleanor did.”
Theodore said nothing.
“He told himself it was temporary,” she continued. “The family company was failing. He moved foundation reserves to cover debt, then used new donations to replace some of the reserves. It became a cycle. Sebastian found out. They fought the night Dad died.”
“No.”
“I found the first transfers.”
“Sebastian would have told us.”
“Sebastian buried them.”
“He blamed Dad after he was dead?”
“He protected him after he was dead.”
“Same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is to me.”
May you like
Rosalie reached toward him, but the movement was too weak to cross the space.
“The letter explains what I found,” she said. “If it becomes public without context, every scholarship, shelter, and arts program connected to the foundation will be treated like stolen money. Some of the money was stolen. Most wasn’t. People will lose jobs before anyone sorts out which is which.”
