Chapter 7: What Thomas Knew
Raymond Chu arrived in fifty-three minutes.
He was Victor's lawyer — a small, precise man in his sixties who wore the same expression whether he was reviewing a contract or delivering bad news, which Lily would later understand was the mark of someone who had seen too much of both to treat them differently.
He set his briefcase on the conference table in the east wing and looked at Lily with the careful neutrality of a man reserving judgment.
"You're the Hargrove daughter," he said.
"Yes."
"Thomas told me about you," Raymond said.
"Once.
About two years before he died.
He said he had a daughter he'd never met and that he intended to correct that before it was too late." He paused.
"He ran out of time."
"He sent me a letter."
"I know.
I helped him write it." Raymond opened his briefcase.
"I also have a copy of the will, the birth certificate, and the DNA analysis he commissioned from a private lab fourteen months ago.
He used a coffee cup." A slight pause.
"Yours.
From a café in Columbus where you worked at the time.
He found you two years before he died.
He watched from a distance for a while before he decided what to do."
Lily absorbed this slowly.
Her father had found her.
Had watched her.
Had decided, quietly and carefully, what kind of man he wanted to be about it.
And then had run out of time.
"He should have just walked in," she said.
"Yes," Raymond said simply.
"He should have."
Victor was standing at the window.
He turned now and came to the table.
"The northeast files," he said.
Raymond placed a second stack of folders beside the first.
"I pulled everything going back four years.
Physical originals from the archive.
I did not touch the digital copies — if someone is monitoring access, I didn't want to trigger anything."
"Smart," Victor said.
"I've been your lawyer for eleven years," Raymond said.
"I've learned to be careful." He opened the top folder.
"Now.
Walk me through what you found."
Lily leaned forward.
She had no documents of her own.
No notes.
Only six months of quiet observation and a mind trained by a childhood spent watching her father — her other father, the one who had raised her — manage a small hardware business with the same careful attention to numbers that Thomas Hargrove had apparently passed to her through blood.
She talked for twenty minutes.
Raymond listened without interrupting.
Victor listened without moving.
When she finished, Raymond looked at the folders for a long moment.
Then he opened the second one from the bottom and placed three pages side by side on the table.
"Quarter three, year two," he said.
"Quarter three, year three.
Quarter three, year four." He tapped each page in turn.
"Same margin.
Down to the decimal point."
"That's not possible," Victor said.
"No," Raymond said.
"It isn't.
Not in a real operation.
Not with real variables." He looked at Victor.
"Someone built a template and ran it forward.
They changed the surface numbers — the line items, the vendor names — but they forgot to randomize the final margin.
Or they didn't think anyone would look that closely."
"Thomas looked that closely," Lily said.
"Thomas was a detail man," Raymond said.
"It's why Victor trusted him.
It's also why someone needed him gone."
The word landed quietly.
Victor went very still.
"Say what you mean, Raymond."
Raymond looked at him steadily.
"Thomas Hargrove died of a cardiac event.
He was sixty-one years old, no prior heart history, moderate health.
The death was ruled natural." A pause.
"I am not saying it wasn't.
I am saying that the timing was convenient for someone running a false ledger through your northeast accounts.
And I am saying that if we bring this to a federal level — which we will need to do — that question will be asked.
You should be prepared for it."
The room was very quiet.
Lily thought about the letter.
The careful, measured words of a man who had known he was running out of time.
*I didn't have proof.
I didn't have time.*
Had he known more than that?
Had he known it wasn't just the books?
"The letter," she said.
"I need to get it.
Today."
"Where is it?" Victor asked.
"My apartment.
In a lockbox under the floorboard in my closet." She paused.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like someone who understood they were carrying something dangerous," Raymond said.
He did not say it unkindly.
"I'll send Marcus with you," Victor said.
"I don't need—"
"Lily." His voice was quiet.
"Serena left last night.
Her father does not yet know everything that was said in this house.
But he will.
And when he does, he will want to know what you know." He looked at her.
"Marcus goes with you."
She nodded.
Raymond was already making notes.
"I'll need the letter, the original will, and the DNA documentation.
I'll file for an emergency forensic audit of the northeast accounts this afternoon.
I have a contact at the FBI's financial crimes division — we were at law school together.
I'll call him before noon."
"How long?" Victor asked.
"To freeze the accounts and secure the records?
Days.
To build a full case?" Raymond looked up.
"Months.
But the freeze is what matters first.
Once the records are secured, Montigue can't move anything."
"He'll know we're coming the moment you file."
"Yes," Raymond said.
"Which is why we move today." He looked at Lily.
"Can you get back here within two hours?"
"Yes."
"Then go now."
She stood.
Victor walked her to the door of the east wing.
In the hallway, he stopped her with a hand on her arm — not gripping, just resting.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For not listening to your father when he came to me."
She looked at him.
At the exhaustion in his face and the steadiness underneath it.
"He didn't blame you," she said.
"The letter — he was very clear about that.
He said you were a man who trusted the wrong person.
He said that was different from being the wrong person."
Victor was quiet for a moment.
"He was generous."
"He was honest," Lily said.
"I think that's what got him into trouble."
She left.
She did not see the expression on Victor's face as she walked away.
But Marcus, waiting at the end of the hall, did.
May you like
And later he would tell her that in eleven years of working for Victor Blackwood, he had never seen the man look like that.
Like something had been returned to him that he had stopped believing he would ever get back.
