Chapter 4: What the Attorney Knew
I didn't sleep.
At six in the morning I called Diana.
She answered on the first ring, which told me she hadn't slept either.
"Robert Holt texted me last night."
A pause.
"Say that again."
"The Sterling family attorney.
He texted my personal number at two in the morning.
Said there's something in the files I haven't seen."
"How did he get your personal number?"
"I don't know."
I heard Diana push back from a chair.
"Forward me the text.
Don't respond to him."
"Diana.
What is he talking about?
What haven't I seen?"
"I don't know yet.
We're still working through the servers." Her voice was careful in the way it got when she knew more than she was saying.
"Audrey, how are you?"
"The baby is in the NICU.
She's stable.
Four pounds eleven."
"Good.
That's good." A breath.
"I'm coming to the hospital this morning.
There are things we need to go over in person."
"Tell me now."
"In person."
She hung up.
Diana arrived at nine.
She came alone, which was unusual.
She was a compact woman in her mid-forties who wore the same style of dark blazer every day and had the habit of looking at the door when she entered a room before she looked at the person in it.
She looked at the door.
Then at me.
"You look terrible," she said.
"I had a baby four hours ago."
She sat down and put a folder on the bed between us.
Not a digital file.
Printed pages.
That was also unusual.
"The servers gave us more than we expected," she said.
"The shell corporation structure goes back eleven years.
It's not just the estate.
There are accounts in three states and two offshore entities we're still tracing."
"I knew about the offshore accounts."
"You knew about one of them."
I looked at her.
"There are two more," Diana said.
"Both opened in the same month.
Both requiring dual authorization." She turned a page toward me.
"One signature is Julian's.
The other is not Eleanor's."
I looked at the page.
The second signature was Seraphina's.
"She was twenty-two when these were opened," Diana said.
"Old enough to sign.
Old enough to know what she was signing."
I sat with that for a moment.
I had built the case around Eleanor as the architect and Julian as the executor.
Seraphina had always been background noise — the spoiled daughter, the bride, the one who called my job government bookkeeping.
"She wasn't just a bystander," I said.
"No."
"How much moved through her accounts?"
"We're still calculating.
Early estimate is somewhere between eight hundred thousand and one point two million."
I looked at the ceiling.
"That's why Holt texted me."
Diana nodded slowly.
"He's trying to get ahead of it.
If he came to you directly, outside of official channels, he may be trying to negotiate something.
Or warn someone.
Or find out how much you know."
"He's named in the warrant."
"He is.
Which means anything he says to you now is potentially obstruction." She closed the folder.
"Do not contact him.
Do not respond.
If he reaches out again, you call me first."
"Understood."
She stood.
Then stopped.
"Julian is asking to see you."
The room went quiet except for the sound of the monitor from the hallway.
"No," I said.
"He's not under arrest yet.
He was detained and released pending formal charges.
He's been in the hospital waiting room since five this morning."
I looked at the door.
"He's been here four hours and he didn't come up?"
"He asked permission at the nurses' station.
They told him it was your decision." Diana watched me.
"It's still your decision."
I thought about the shadow under the bathroom door.
The ten minutes.
The sound of his footsteps walking away.
"Tell him I'll see him for ten minutes," I said.
"In this room.
No attorney.
No family."
Diana's expression didn't change.
"Are you sure?"
"I want to hear what he says when there's no one else in the room."
She left.
I had seven minutes before Julian appeared in the doorway.
He looked like he hadn't slept.
His jacket was gone.
His shirt was wrinkled.
He had the look of a man who had spent the night understanding, slowly, exactly how much he had lost.
He stopped just inside the door.
"Audrey."
"Close the door."
He did.
"Sit down."
He sat in the chair Diana had used.
He put his hands on his knees.
He looked at me and then looked away.
"I heard about the baby," he said.
"Is she—"
"She's stable.
Four pounds eleven.
NICU observation."
"Can I—"
"No."
He nodded.
He seemed to have expected that.
"I need you to understand something," I said.
"I'm not angry.
I want you to hear that.
I'm not sitting here wanting to hurt you.
I made a professional decision based on evidence, and you made a personal decision in that corridor, and both of those things are finished."
He looked at his hands.
"I didn't know Mom was going to lock the door."
"Julian."
"I didn't.
I thought she was just moving you somewhere quieter—"
"You heard me asking you to open it.
You told me to wait ten minutes."
He was quiet.
"You told me your mother was upset," I said.
"While I was in premature labor on a bathroom floor."
"I know."
"So don't tell me you didn't know."
He put his face in his hands.
His shoulders moved.
I watched him without feeling the thing I would have expected to feel.
"The files," he said finally.
"How long have you known?"
"Nine months."
He looked up.
"Nine months."
"I found the first irregularity in October.
I spent three months hoping it was a mistake.
Then I spent six months building a case I hoped I would never have to use."
"You were investigating us while you were pregnant."
"I was doing my job."
"You were living in my house—"
"And you were signing authorizations for shell corporations that listed d*ad people as employees." My voice stayed level.
"Which of those things is the larger problem?"
He had no answer for that.
"There's something you need to know," he said.
"About Holt."
"I know about Holt."
He looked up sharply.
"You know he—"
"I know he texted me at two in the morning.
I know he's trying to manage something.
I know he's named in the warrant." I watched Julian's face.
"What I want to know is what he told you to do before you came up here."
Julian went very still.
"He told you to come," I said.
"Didn't he."
The stillness was answer enough.
I reached for the call button on the side of the bed.
"This conversation is over."
"Audrey—"
"You came here because your attorney told you to.
Not because you wanted to see your daughter.
Not because you wanted to apologize." I pressed the button.
"Get out, Julian."
He stood.
He moved toward the door.
Then he stopped with his hand on the frame.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I am sorry.
Not because Holt told me to say it."
I looked at him.
"I believe you," I said.
"It doesn't change anything."
He left.
The nurse appeared thirty seconds later.
I told her I was fine and asked her to make sure Julian Sterling was not given access to the NICU.
She wrote something on her clipboard without asking why.
My phone buzzed again.
May you like
This time it was a number I recognized.
Seraphina.
