Chapter 7: Room 9
Grace Okafor was already parked outside the motel when Clara and Marsh arrived.
She was a tall woman in a gray blazer with a notepad in her hand and the particular stillness of someone who had learned to read a situation before walking into it.
She looked at Clara.
"You're the mother."
"Yes."
"Your son is in there?"
"Room 9."
Grace looked at the door.
"I want to be clear about something before we go in.
I'm here as a courtesy to Daniel, and because what he described on the phone is credible enough to warrant a conversation.
I am not here to make an arrest.
I am here to listen.
If what your son tells me is consistent with the documents you've provided, I will open a formal investigation.
Do you understand the difference?"
"I understand," Clara said.
"He just needs to tell someone official what he knows.
The rest is in the papers."
Grace nodded once and walked toward Room 9.
Clara knocked.
A pause.
The sound of a chain being drawn back.
The door opened.
Leonard Vance was thinner than the last photograph Clara had of him.
He had four days of stubble and a bruise along his left jaw that had gone yellow at the edges.
He was wearing the same clothes he'd apparently been in since Tuesday — a gray shirt, dark trousers, one of his dress shoes split at the sole.
He saw Clara and his face did something that was not quite crying and not quite relief but somewhere in the space between them.
She put her arms around him.
He didn't speak for a moment.
Neither did she.
Then Grace said, gently, "Mr.
Vance.
My name is Grace Okafor.
I'm with the financial crimes unit.
I'd like to hear what happened."
Leonard pulled back from Clara.
He looked at Grace, then at Marsh, then back at his mother.
"All of it?" he said.
"All of it," Grace said.
"From the beginning."
They sat.
Leonard talked for forty minutes.
He talked about the missing contracts, the Veritas transfers, Dale Pritchard's name appearing in the routing records, his confrontation with Veronica, her response.
He talked about the accident on Route 35 — the truck that came out of a side road without lights, the impact, crawling out of the ditch, watching his car burn from fifty yards away with a man still inside it.
"I didn't call the police," he said.
"I know how that sounds.
But I stood there and I thought — if she planned this, if she has someone in the firm, if Cobb is involved — I didn't know who to trust.
I had no phone.
No wallet.
I walked two miles to a gas station and used a stranger's phone to call a man I went to college with.
He drove me here and paid for the room in cash."
"The man in the vehicle," Grace said.
"You have no idea who he was."
"No.
I've been thinking about it for four days.
Veronica has resources.
She has her brother.
I don't know where she found someone willing to—" He stopped.
"We'll identify him," Grace said.
"The medical examiner's office is holding the body pending verification.
We'll have DNA results within forty-eight hours." She made a note.
"Mr.
Vance, I need to ask you directly — the ownership transfer document.
Did you sign it?"
"No."
"You're certain."
"I have never seen that document before today.
My mother described it to me on the phone." His jaw tightened.
"That is not my signature.
Or if it looks like mine, someone practiced."
Grace wrote something down.
She looked at Priya's envelope on the table — Marsh had brought it in.
"These records.
The Veritas transfers.
You compiled these yourself?"
"With Priya's help, yes."
"And you confronted your wife with this information."
"Ten days ago."
"In front of witnesses?"
"No.
At home.
Just the two of us."
Grace looked at her notepad.
"And two days after that confrontation, a vehicle registered in your name was involved in a fatal accident on Route 35, and your wife moved immediately to have the occupant identified as you and buried without a formal viewing or family notification."
"Yes."
Grace closed her notepad.
She looked at Marsh.
"I'm opening a formal investigation.
I need originals of everything." She looked at Leonard.
"I need you to come in and give a formal statement.
Today, if possible." She paused.
"I also need you to understand that once this is formal, Veronica Vance will be notified that you are alive.
We cannot proceed without that."
Leonard looked at Clara.
Clara looked back at him.
"She already suspects," Clara said.
"She heard his voice on the phone this morning.
Whatever move she's planning — she's planning it right now."
Grace stood.
"Then we move faster than she does." She picked up her phone.
"I'm calling this in."
She stepped outside.
Leonard reached across the table and put his hand over Clara's.
"You came," he said.
It was not quite a question.
"You're my boy," Clara said.
"Where else would I be?"
Through the motel window, they could see Grace on the phone, already moving, already building the wall that would close around Veronica before she could run.
But Clara noticed something Grace did not.
A car had been parked across the street when they arrived.
A dark sedan.
It was still there.
May you like
The engine was running.
And the driver was watching Room 9.
