Chapter 44
The call came while I was still standing in the penthouse living room, staring at the city lights and trying to process the fact that someone might have murdered Richard Ashford.
Dominic's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, frowned, then answered. "Yes?"
I watched his face change. The openness from the press conference—that raw, unguarded thing—disappeared behind the mask he wore so well.
"Absolutely not," he said.
Patricia looked up from her laptop. Morrison, who'd been standing by the window doing whatever federal agents did when they pretended not to listen, turned around.
"I don't care what he's offering." Dominic's voice went flat. Cold. "The answer is no."
I crossed the room. "What's happening?"
He held up one finger. The gesture was so dismissive, so automatic, that my spine went rigid.
"Tell Marcus Ashford," Dominic said into the phone, "that he can rot in that detention facility until—"
I grabbed the phone from his hand.
"Hey—"
I put it to my ear. "This is Sloane Whitley."
The voice on the other end was smooth, professional. A lawyer's voice. "Ms. Whitley. I'm David Chen, representing Marcus Ashford. My client would like to propose an arrangement."
"I'm listening."
"Mr. Ashford has information regarding the death of Richard Ashford. Specifically, evidence that suggests it was not, in fact, a heart attack."
My pulse kicked up. "What kind of evidence?"
"A recording. Made three days before Richard Ashford's death. It contains a conversation between Richard and another individual—a board member of Ashford Industries—discussing the embezzlement scheme and Catherine Chen's murder."
The room tilted slightly. I pressed my free hand against the back of the couch.
"In this recording," Chen continued, "Richard Ashford expresses remorse and threatens to confess. The other individual makes what could be interpreted as a threat."
"So Richard was murdered."
"My client believes so, yes."
Dominic was watching me with an expression I couldn't read. Patricia had closed her laptop. Morrison had moved closer, his hand resting on his hip near his weapon.
"What does Marcus want?" I asked.
"Five minutes of your time. In person. At the border detention facility."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
I looked at Dominic. His jaw was tight, his hands clenched at his sides.
"Why me?" I asked Chen. "Why not Dominic, or the FBI, or—"
"He specifically requested you, Ms. Whitley. He said you're the only one who deserves to hear the truth about your mother's final days."
The words hit like a fist to the sternum.
"When?" My voice came out rough.
"Tomorrow morning. Nine AM. He'll be transferred to federal custody by noon, so this is the only window."
"I'll be there."
"Ms. Whitley—" Chen's voice shifted, became less professional. "My client asked me to tell you something. He said: 'Catherine tried to stop it. She was the only one who tried.'"
I ended the call.
The silence in the room was absolute.
Then Dominic said, "No."
"You don't get to decide that."
I handed him back his phone. He didn't take it, so I set it on the coffee table between us like a gauntlet.
"This is not a negotiation," he said. "You are not going to a detention facility to meet with a man who helped cover up your mother's murder."
"He has evidence."
"He claims to have evidence. It could be a trap."
"A trap for what? He's already caught. He's facing extradition and federal charges. What exactly do you think he's going to do to me in a government facility with guards and cameras and—"
"I do not care." Dominic's voice dropped to that quiet, dangerous register. "You are not going."
Patricia cleared her throat. "Perhaps we should discuss this rationally—"
"There's nothing to discuss," Dominic said, not looking at her. His eyes were locked on mine. "Sloane, you just stood in front of the world and claimed your inheritance. You made yourself a target. Every person who was involved in that conspiracy, every board member who took kickbacks, every executive who knew—they all have a reason to want you gone."
"So I should hide?"
"You should be smart."
"I am being smart. Marcus has information about my mother. About how she died, about what she knew, about—"
"He's manipulating you."
The words hung between us.
I felt my nails dig into my palms. "You think I don't know that? You think I'm some naive kid who can't see when someone's playing me?"
"I think you want answers so badly that you'll walk into danger to get them."
"Yeah, no, you're right. I do want answers. Because my mother was murdered, Dominic. She was killed by your father to protect a bunch of rich assholes who were stealing from their own company. And now one of those assholes might have killed your father too. So excuse me if I think that's worth five minutes of my time."
His face went pale. "That is not fair."
"None of this is fair."
Patricia stood up. "I'm going to make coffee. Morrison, would you help me?"
Morrison didn't move. "I should stay—"
"Now, Agent Morrison."
They left. The door to the kitchen closed with a soft click.
Dominic and I stared at each other across the coffee table. The city lights behind him turned his face into a study of shadows.
"I cannot lose you," he said finally.
The words were so quiet I almost missed them.
"You don't have me to lose."
"Do I not?"
My throat went tight. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
I sat down on the couch. My legs felt suddenly unsteady. "I meant... you can't protect me from my own choices. Either you trust me or you don't."
He was silent for a long moment. Then he sat down across from me, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
"When my mother died," he said, "I was twelve years old. My father told me she had a heart condition. That it was sudden, unexpected, that there was nothing anyone could have done." He looked up at me. "I believed him. For twenty-three years, I believed him."
I waited.
"And then I found the files. The real medical records. The toxicology reports he'd buried. The payments to the coroner." His voice was completely flat. "She did not have a heart condition. She had bruises on her throat. And my father paid half a million dollars to make sure no one ever asked why."
The air left my lungs.
"So when you say I cannot protect you from your own choices," Dominic continued, "what I hear is: I cannot protect you at all. And that is a feeling I am intimately familiar with."
I crossed the space between us. Sat down next to him on the couch. Our knees touched.
"I'm not your mother," I said.
"I know that."
"And Marcus isn't your father."
"I know that too."
"So let me do this. Let me hear what he has to say. Let me get the evidence and bring it back and—"
"Take Morrison."
I blinked. "What?"
"Take Agent Morrison with you. Not as a guard. As a witness. Someone who can verify the evidence, who can testify if needed, who can—" He stopped. Took a breath. "Someone who can make sure you come back."
The tightness in my chest eased slightly. "Okay."
"And you wear a wire. And you do not go anywhere alone with him. And if anything feels wrong, even slightly wrong, you leave immediately."
"Okay."
He turned to look at me. His eyes were dark, exhausted, haunted by things I was only beginning to understand.
"I am trying," he said. "To be different. To not be him."
I took his hand. His fingers were cold.
"I know," I said. "That tracks."
The detention facility was a squat concrete building thirty minutes from the Canadian border, surrounded by chain-link fence and security cameras. Morrison had driven us in a black SUV that screamed federal agent, and now we were sitting in a waiting room that smelled like industrial cleaner and desperation.
A guard appeared. "Ms. Whitley? He's ready for you."
Morrison stood up. "I'm coming with her."
"He requested to speak with Ms. Whitley alone."
"Not happening."
The guard looked at me. I looked at Morrison. He had the kind of face that probably smiled sometimes, but right now it was all hard angles and professional suspicion.
"He can stay," I said. "Non-negotiable."
The guard shrugged. "Your call."
We followed him down a hallway painted institutional beige. Through a door. Into a small interview room with a metal table and three chairs.
Marcus Ashford sat in one of them.
I barely recognized him.
The man I'd met at the gala—smooth, confident, wearing a ten-thousand-dollar suit like armor—was gone. This version of Marcus looked like he'd aged a decade in a week. His hair was greasy, his face unshaven, his orange jumpsuit hanging loose on a frame that had lost weight it couldn't afford to lose.
He looked up when we entered. His eyes were bloodshot but sharp.
"Sloane," he said. "Thank you for coming."
I sat down across from him. Morrison remained standing by the door, arms crossed.
"You have five minutes," I said. "Talk."
Marcus smiled. It was a terrible smile, full of something that might have been regret or might have been resignation or might have been both.
"Your mother," he said, "discovered the embezzlement by accident."
"How?"
"She was helping Richard falsify patent documents. Standard procedure—we'd been doing it for years, claiming innovations that came from acquired companies as Ashford originals. Catherine was good with paperwork. Detail-oriented. Richard trusted her."
My nails dug into my palms again. "So?"
"So one day she noticed a discrepancy. A payment that didn't match the records. She started digging." Marcus leaned back in his chair. "She found everything. The kickbacks, the offshore accounts, the board members who were taking cuts. Millions of dollars, Sloane. Stolen over decades."
"And she threatened to expose it."
"She did more than threaten. She went to Richard with evidence. Told him she was going to the SEC, to the FBI, to anyone who would listen." His voice went quiet. "She gave him twenty-four hours to turn himself in."
The room felt very cold.
"Richard panicked," Marcus continued. "He called an emergency meeting with the board members who were involved. They told him to handle it. To make the problem go away."
"So he killed her."
"He poisoned her coffee. Made it look like she fell asleep at the wheel." Marcus's hands were shaking slightly. "And then he paid off the police, the coroner, anyone who might ask questions. Just like he'd done before."
Morrison shifted by the door. "You have proof of this?"
Marcus reached into his pocket slowly, carefully, the way you moved when guards were watching. He pulled out a small recording device. Set it on the table between us.
"This is a conversation between Richard Ashford and Gerald Hastings," he said. "Recorded three days before Richard died. I found it in Richard's office after his death. He'd hidden it in a safe deposit box with instructions to send it to me if anything happened to him."
"Why you?" I asked.
"Because I was the only one he thought might actually use it." Marcus pressed play.
The recording was scratchy, distant, like it had been made on a phone in someone's pocket. But the voices were clear enough.
Richard's voice: "I can't do this anymore, Gerald. I can't live with what we did to that woman."
A pause. Then another voice, older, rougher: "You're being emotional, Richard. It was necessary. She would have destroyed everything we built."
"She was trying to do the right thing."
"The right thing would have put us all in prison."
"Maybe that's where we belong."
A longer pause. Then Gerald's voice, very quiet: "Are you threatening to confess?"
"I'm saying I can't keep lying. I see her face every time I close my eyes. I hear her voice. She trusted me, Gerald. She thought I was a good man."
"You are a good man. You protected your family. Your company. Your legacy."
"I murdered an innocent woman."
"You made a difficult choice in an impossible situation."
"I'm going to tell the truth. I'm going to turn myself in. And I'm going to name everyone who was involved."
Silence. Then: "Then you leave us no choice, Richard."
The recording ended.
I stared at the device. My hands were numb.
"Gerald Hastings died of a heart attack two weeks after Richard," Marcus said. "Very convenient timing."
Morrison moved forward. "I need to take that into evidence."
"It's yours." Marcus pushed the device across the table. "Along with the files I gave to my lawyer. Bank records, emails, everything."
"Why?" I asked. My voice sounded strange, distant. "Why are you doing this now?"
Marcus looked at me. Really looked at me, for the first time since I'd entered the room.
"I'm dying," he said. "Cancer. Stage four. The doctors give me three months, maybe four if I'm unlucky."
The words settled into the space between us.
"I've done terrible things, Sloane. I've lied, I've cheated, I've helped cover up crimes that destroyed lives. But I didn't kill anyone. And I can't die knowing that the people who did are going to walk away clean."
"So this is revenge."
"This is justice. Or the closest thing to it I can manage." He leaned forward. "Your mother was the only one who tried to stop it. The only one who looked at what we were doing and said no. She deserved better than us. Better than Richard, better than the board, better than—" His voice cracked. "Better than me."
I stood up. The chair scraped against the floor.
"Is that everything?" I asked.
"That's everything."
I turned toward the door. Morrison was already there, the recording device sealed in an evidence bag.
"Sloane," Marcus called.
I looked back.
"She loved you," he said. "In case no one ever told you that. Catherine talked about you all the time. Showed everyone pictures. She was so proud of you, even though—" He stopped. "Even though she couldn't be with you. She loved you."
My throat closed up. I nodded once, sharp, and walked out of the room.
We were halfway to the parking lot when Morrison's phone rang.
He answered, listened, and his expression went dark.
"When?" he asked. Then: "Jesus Christ."
He ended the call. Looked at me.
"The board member on that recording," he said. "Gerald Hastings. He just died. Car accident, thirty minutes ago."
The world tilted.
"His brakes failed," Morrison continued. "Went off a bridge into the river. They're calling it mechanical failure, but—"
"But it's not," I finished.
Morrison's hand went to his weapon again. That unconscious gesture that meant he was thinking about threats, about danger, about all the ways this could go wrong.
"We need to get you somewhere safe," he said. "Now."
He grabbed my arm, started pulling me toward the SUV.
And that's when I saw the man standing by our vehicle.
He was wearing a suit. Expensive. Dark. His hands were in his pockets, and he was smiling.
Morrison saw him too. His grip on my arm tightened.
"Ms. Whitley," the man called out. His voice was smooth, pleasant. "I wonder if we might have a word."
Morrison's weapon was out. "Federal agent. Step away from the vehicle."
The man didn't move. His smile widened.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," he said. "I'm here to deliver a message."
"From who?" I asked.
"From the people who are very interested in making sure that recording never sees the light of day." He tilted his head. "And who are willing to pay a substantial amount of money to ensure your cooperation."
Morrison's gun didn't waver. "Last warning. Step away."
The man finally moved. But instead of backing up, he walked toward us.
Morrison fired.
The shot went wide—deliberately, I realized. A warning.
The man stopped. His smile disappeared.
"You're making a mistake," he said, looking at me now. "Both of you. That recording implicates powerful people. People who have resources you can't imagine. People who—"
A second SUV pulled into the parking lot. Then a third. Doors opened. Men in suits emerged.
Morrison grabbed my hand. "Run."
We ran.