Chapter 6: The Last Performance
She arrived at nine forty-five.
Dark dress again.
Hair pulled back.
She carried a small arrangement of white roses — not lilies this time — and set them on the windowsill without looking at me.
Then she sat in the chair beside the bed and crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap and became, for anyone watching through the glass, a devoted woman keeping vigil.
The nurse checked my vitals at nine fifty and left.
The door closed.
Veronica leaned forward.
"It's Wednesday, Dominic." Her voice was almost gentle.
"One more day.
I want you to know I've been very patient."
I opened my eyes.
She went completely still.
The roses behind her caught the morning light.
"Veronica," I said.
Her face did something complicated — shock, then calculation, then something that tried to become relief and didn't quite get there.
She stood up from the chair.
Her hand went to her collarbone.
"Dominic — you're awake — I have to call the—"
"Sit down."
She stopped.
Something in my voice made her sit.
"How long?" she asked carefully.
"Since the first night."
The calculation behind her eyes was almost visible.
She was running numbers, retracing her steps, cataloguing every word she had said in this room over five days.
"Then you heard things," she said, "that were taken out of context."
"Tell me the context."
"I was frightened.
Grief makes people say terrible things.
You know that." She reached forward and put her hand over mine on the blanket.
Her fingers were cold.
"Dominic.
We can move past this.
Whatever you think you heard—"
"I think I heard you tell a man named Carver that you wanted my death to look like a medical complication."
Her hand went still on mine.
"I think I heard you, four days before my crash, arranging the terms." I watched her face.
"I think I heard you say to charge more.
That I was worth considerably more than what he'd seen so far."
The color left her face in a single, even withdrawal, like water pulling back from a shore.
"That's not—" She stopped.
Started again.
"You can't prove any of that."
"Grace Miller can."
Her eyes went flat.
"The maid."
"The woman who was restocking the cabinet behind the curtain on the second day when you came in and made a phone call you assumed was private."
Veronica stood up.
The chair scraped back.
"Grace Miller is a cleaning woman.
No one will—"
"Sit down, Veronica."
"I don't have to—"
"The recording is already with my attorney." It wasn't yet.
It would be within the hour.
"The USB drive from Carver's office is with the same attorney.
Marco's records of his meetings with Anthony are being transferred as we speak." I watched each piece land on her face.
"Sit down."
She sat.
Her hands were in her lap and they were not steady.
"What do you want?" she said.
Her voice had changed entirely.
The performance was gone.
What was underneath it was cold and precise and, I realized, genuinely frightened.
"I want you to call Anthony right now.
On speaker.
And I want you to tell him the plan is finished."
"He'll know something is wrong."
"Yes," I said.
"He will."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she reached into her bag and took out her phone.
Anthony picked up on the second ring.
"Is it done?"
Veronica's eyes stayed on mine.
"No," she said.
"It's over.
Don't go to the board tomorrow.
Don't go anywhere." Her voice was flat.
"He's awake, Anthony.
He's been awake the whole time."
The line went silent for three full seconds.
Then Anthony said, very quietly: "How much does he know?"
May you like
I reached over and ended the call myself.
"Enough," I said.
