Chapter 3 - The Lie Behind the Broken Vase
Richard entered the library with two security men behind him.
He looked at me.
Then at the brass tack on Nicholas's desk.
Something changed in his eyes.
Nicholas noticed.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
“The garland was deliberately loosened.”
Richard shrugged.
“Decorations come loose.”
“The vase was fake.”
Silence.
Nicholas leaned against his desk.
“You told Emily she'd destroyed a seventeenth-century antique.”
“I was mistaken.”
“You manage my collection.”
“Yes.”
“You catalog every object.”
“Yes.”
“You've worked here fourteen years.”
Richard's jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“And you couldn't distinguish a reproduction from an antique?”
“I made an error.”
Nicholas nodded.
“Interesting night for errors.”
Richard looked toward me.
“She still dropped it.”
Nicholas's voice became colder.
“Stop looking at her.”
Richard obeyed.
“Why did you want her gone?”
“I didn't.”
“Then explain the tack.”
“I can't.”
Marco placed a tablet on the desk.
“We checked the cameras.”
Richard's face changed.
Nicholas saw it.
“Play it.”
The footage showed the foyer two hours earlier.
Richard entered alone.
He looked toward the corridor.
Then crouched beside the staircase.
His hand disappeared beneath the garland.
Thirty seconds later, he walked away.
My chest tightened.
“That doesn't prove anything,” Richard said.
Marco switched videos.
Another camera.
Richard carrying the blue-and-white vase from a storage room.
Nicholas looked at him.
“You staged it.”
Richard said nothing.
“You loosened the decoration. You replaced the vase. Then you ordered Emily to move it.”
Still nothing.
“Why?”
Richard finally exhaled.
“She was asking questions.”
I looked up.
“What questions?”
Nicholas's gaze sharpened.
“What questions, Richard?”
Richard stared at me.
“You should have kept your head down.”
Nicholas crossed the room so quickly that Richard stepped backward.
“Talk to me.”
Richard's voice dropped.
“She found paperwork.”
“I found nothing.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“The study.”
I shook my head.
“I've never entered Mr. Grimaldiro's study.”
“Not his. Mine.”
Then I remembered.
Two weeks earlier, Richard had sent me to clean his office.
There had been an envelope beneath his desk.
I had picked it up.
Three invoices had fallen out.
“I didn't read them.”
“You saw the names.”
“What names?”
“Enough.”
Nicholas stared at Richard.
“What invoices?”
Richard's silence answered.
Nicholas turned to Marco.
“Pull every account Caldwell has supervised.”
Richard's composure cracked.
“You can't.”
Nicholas almost smiled.
“That's an unusual thing to say about my own money.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then help me.”
Richard's face tightened.
“For fourteen years, I ran this house while you were everywhere else.”
“And?”
“I fixed problems.”
“You created one tonight.”
“You think this girl matters?”
The room went silent.
Nicholas's expression emptied.
Richard realized too late what he'd said.
Nicholas walked toward him.
“She has a name.”
Richard said nothing.
“Use it.”
“Emily.”
“Good.”
Nicholas stepped closer.
“You tried to frame Emily for destroying property so you could force her out before she remembered something she didn't even understand.”
Richard's mouth tightened.
Nicholas continued.
“Then you sent her into weather that could have killed her.”
“I didn't expect her to stay outside.”
“She didn't have transportation.”
“She could have called someone.”
“You refused her the phone.”
Richard looked at me sharply.
Nicholas caught that too.
“You thought she wouldn't tell me.”
Nobody spoke.
Nicholas looked toward Marco.
“Take him out.”
Richard suddenly panicked.
“Nicholas.”
“Not interested.”
“There are things you don't know.”
“I'm discovering that.”
“Your accounts aren't clean.”
Nicholas stopped.
Richard swallowed.
“Someone has been stealing from you.”
Nicholas turned.
“Someone?”
Richard's voice lowered.
“I can give you names.”
“You just gave me one.”
Richard's face drained.
His own.
Marco escorted him away.
I sat motionless beside the fire.
Nicholas looked at me.
“Emily.”
“Yes?”
“Those invoices you saw. Think carefully.”
I closed my eyes.
White paper.
Black lettering.
Numbers.
Then something surfaced.
“One company.”
“What company?”
“Caldwell Restoration Services.”
Marco stopped near the doorway.
Nicholas frowned.
“Richard doesn't own a restoration company.”
“I remember because I thought it was his family.”
Nicholas looked at Marco.
“Find it.”
Marco was already typing.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then his expression changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Company exists.”
“Owner?”
Marco looked at the screen.
“Daniel Caldwell.”
Richard's younger brother.
Nicholas's eyes hardened.
“How much have we paid them?”
Marco scrolled.
“Over the last three years?”
He paused.
May you like
“Nearly eight hundred thousand dollars.”
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