Chương 8
“So Sebastian gets to hide it.”
“No. The board, auditors, and prosecutors get it. Not strangers trying to solve us in thirty-second videos.”
“You sound like him.”
Pain crossed her face before she could conceal it. “I know.”
Theodore left the room.
He did not go far. He sat on the floor beside a vending machine at the end of the corridor and watched a packet of crackers hang from a metal coil after someone’s purchase failed to dislodge it. For twenty minutes, three different people shook the machine. A nurse finally slapped the side with the flat of her hand, and the crackers fell.
Theodore thought about causation. Enough force in the correct place. Rosalie would have said the machine had poor internal controls.
Sebastian found him there.
“You were right,” Theodore said before his uncle could speak.
Sebastian remained standing. “About what?”
“Pain does make certainty feel better.”
He looked toward Rosalie’s room. “She told you.”
“Our father stole from the foundation.”
“Yes.”
“And you covered it up.”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten him that night?”
Sebastian lowered himself into the chair across from the vending machine. “I told him I would call an emergency board meeting in the morning. He asked me to wait forty-eight hours. I refused.”
“Then he drove into the bridge.”
“Yes.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Not as drunk as the report suggested.”
“What does that mean?”
“I found an empty bottle in his office and moved it to the car before police arrived.”
Theodore stared at him.
Sebastian’s face did not change. “I wanted the accident to appear simple. A grieving widower, alcohol, poor judgment. I believed a financial investigation would destroy what remained of his name and expose the foundation before I could replace the funds.”
“You changed evidence.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think he killed himself because of Mom.”
“I let you think many things because I had no explanation that did not make your father smaller.”
Theodore rose. “You don’t get to decide how large he was.”
“No.”
“You always say that after it’s too late. No, I should have checked the coffin. No, I should not have moved the bottle. No, I should not have lied. Then everyone congratulates you for admitting what you already got away with.”
Sebastian looked down at his hands. “No one has congratulated me.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“How would you prefer I say it?”
“Like it matters.”
Sebastian’s head lifted. His dark eyes were bloodshot now, though Theodore had not seen him cry.
“It matters,” he said.
The letter from the glasshouse contained Rosalie’s summary of the foundation thefts, copies of records implicating Eleanor and her brother, and a separate account of Theodore’s father’s conduct. Rosalie had written that Sebastian’s efforts to replace the missing money did not erase his obstruction, document manipulation, or threats against employees who questioned the accounts.
She had also written that she did not believe Sebastian intended physical harm to her.
Detective Cole did not share the full letter with Theodore, but Rosalie did after being moved from intensive care to a guarded private room. She asked Naomi to bring her reading glasses, then discovered she could not focus on more than two pages without a headache.
“The police think Eleanor drugged you alone,” Theodore said.
“They think many things.”
“Mercer signed the certificate.”
“He is claiming she told him I had a terminal heart condition.”
“You don’t.”
“I have noticed.”
“Why would he believe her?”
“He didn’t. Sebastian paid a settlement for him eight years ago after a patient sued. Adrian has been orbiting gratitude and resentment ever since.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he hates feeling owned but has never stopped accepting invitations.”
Theodore looked at the pages spread across her blanket. “Halpern says he never saw the gag.”
“Halpern says whatever reduces the number of crimes in his sentence.”
“Eleanor still hasn’t been arrested.”
“They are building the case.”
“She could leave.”
“Her passport was surrendered.”
“She has money.”
“So does Sebastian. Money is not teleportation.”
“It is close.”
Rosalie removed her glasses. “You need to sleep.”
“You were buried alive.”
“I was not buried.”
“You were scheduled for cremation.”
“Then accurately, I was nearly cremated alive.”
“That is worse.”
“Yes. I regretted correcting you as soon as I started.”
Theodore rubbed his eyes. “Do you remember the silver vent?”
“No.”
“Someone chose that coffin.”
“Sebastian did.”
He looked up.
Rosalie turned her face toward the window. “When Mom died, he handled the arrangements. She was terrified of enclosed spaces near the end. Sebastian ordered a coffin with a ventilation fitting because he said he could not bear the thought of sealing her completely, even though it was irrational.”
“So he chose the same kind for you.”
“Yes.”
“That saved you.”
“Possibly.”
Theodore sat with that. Sebastian’s grief for Theodore’s mother, expressed years earlier through an unnecessary piece of silver hardware, had left enough airflow for Rosalie to survive his later failure to look at her.
Not every object needed meaning. This one had acquired it anyway.
Eleanor was arrested four days after the memorial.
She had attempted to leave the estate in a maintenance vehicle, wearing a groundskeeper’s coat over her clothes. Security stopped her at the west gate after Sebastian ordered that no household vehicle leave without police inspection.
Inside the vehicle, officers found cash, two passports, jewelry, and a bottle containing pills consistent with one of the substances in Rosalie’s toxicology results. They also found one black glove. The other remained missing.
The arrest video spread faster than the coffin footage. Eleanor emerged from the vehicle without resistance, her hair still arranged in its low bun, one bare hand shielding her face. The emerald earrings flashed beneath camera lights.
She did not look monstrous.
She looked tired, angry, and humiliated.
May you like
That disturbed Theodore more.
Sebastian watched the video in Naomi’s kitchen. He had come to discuss Theodore’s temporary guardianship after child welfare officials determined the estate was not an appropriate placement during the investigation. Printer sat beneath the table with its chin on Sebastian’s shoe.
