Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Three hundred miles north, Laurel’s hands tightened around the steering wheel as her phone—an old prepaid device Silas knew nothing about—rang once.
She answered.
“Molly?”
Her college roommate’s voice came through thick with sleep.
“Laurel? It’s six in the morning.”
“I need your house.”
A pause.
Then Molly Keene became fully awake.
“What happened?”
Laurel touched her bruised cheek.
“My marriage ended.”
“Jesus.”
“And I think somebody has been stealing millions from the foundation.”
A longer pause.
“Laurel, where are you?”
“Driving north.”
“Are you alone?”
Laurel looked into the rearview mirror.
For several miles a dark pickup had been following her.
She changed lanes.
The truck changed lanes too.
Her stomach tightened.
“I’m not sure.”
“Do not come directly to my house.”
“Molly—”
“Listen to me. Take the next public exit. Find somewhere busy. Call me again.”
The truck drew closer.
Laurel pressed harder on the accelerator.
Snow streaked sideways across the windshield.
For fifteen years, she had believed the most dangerous thing about Silas Varelli’s world was Silas.
That Christmas morning, she began to understand she might have been wrong.
The truck followed for seventeen miles.
Then disappeared.
Laurel reached Molly’s Vermont farmhouse shortly after noon by taking three detours and stopping twice.
Molly opened the door wearing wool socks, sweatpants, and the expression of a woman prepared to commit a felony on behalf of a friend.
Then she saw Laurel’s face.
“Oh my God.”
Laurel said, “Please don’t hug me.”
Molly nodded.
“Okay.”
Laurel took two steps inside.
Then whispered, “Actually, hug me.”
She collapsed against her.
For several minutes Laurel cried without dignity, without restraint, without trying to make grief look civilized.
Molly simply held her.
Later they sat beside the kitchen table with coffee growing cold between them.
Laurel explained Sabrina.
The chair.
Their daughter.
The slap.
Silas.
When she finished, Molly’s hands were shaking.
“He hit you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever do that before?”
“No.”
“That does not matter.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
Laurel looked at the window.
“I know enough to leave.”
Then she opened the envelope.
Molly had spent twelve years investigating corporate fraud before burning out and moving to Vermont.
She examined the documents in silence.
After twenty minutes, she pushed her coffee away.
“How many copies exist?”
“Three.”
“Where?”
“One with me. One in a safe-deposit box. One automatically releases if I don’t access a certain account for thirty days.”
Molly looked impressed despite herself.
“You learned paranoia from your husband.”
“No. I learned documentation from being married to a man who thinks verbal promises disappear when convenient.”
Molly tapped one page.
“This is bigger than embezzlement.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean much bigger.”
Several supposedly charitable purchases were tied to warehouses where goods vanished before reaching clinics.
Medical equipment.
Emergency generators.
Prescription supplies.
Things communities had fundraised desperately to purchase.
Laurel felt sick.
“That foundation was mine.”
“Legally?”
“No.”
“I don’t mean legally.”
Laurel understood.
She had spent ten years organizing benefit dinners, meeting families, visiting pediatric wards and shelters.
People had looked her in the eye and thanked her.
Meanwhile someone had been draining money behind the logo she helped design.
Molly closed the folder.
“You need an attorney.”
“I need proof.”
“You have proof.”
“I need proof that survives Silas.”
Molly studied her.
“Are you protecting him?”
Laurel’s eyes hardened.
“No. I am making sure that if I destroy something, I destroy the guilty people and not everyone standing nearby.”
Back in New York, Silas was doing something almost as unfamiliar as apologizing.
He was listening.
Wes Maddox, his security chief, stood across the office.
“Alder Ridge was created eighteen months ago.”
“Ownership?”
“Layered. But Laurel was right about Sabrina having access.”
“And Grant?”
“He approved every transfer.”
Silas stared at the papers.
Grant had grown up two streets away from him.
They had fought together as teenagers.
Buried Grant’s father together.
Built businesses together.
“Bring him in.”
Wes didn’t move.
Silas looked up.
“What?”
“I don’t think that’s smart.”
It was the first time in twelve years Wes had openly disagreed with him.
Silas almost reacted the way he always did.
Then he remembered Laurel behind a locked door.
“What would be smart?”
“Watch him.”
Silas leaned back.
“And Sabrina?”
“Gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“Her apartment was cleared before sunrise.”
A cold feeling settled behind Silas’s ribs.
“When?”
“Security footage shows her leaving at four thirteen.”
Silas calculated.
Less than an hour after Laurel.
Coincidence was a luxury men like Silas rarely believed in.
“Find Sabrina.”
Wes nodded.
“And Laurel?”
Silas looked toward the photograph on his desk.
“No one bothers her.”
“You want her protected?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know?”
“No.”
“That could look like surveillance.”
Silas almost said, I don’t care.
The words reached his mouth.
Then stopped.
“She left because she wanted control over her own life.”
“Yes.”
Silas rubbed both hands over his face.
“Then keep distance. Only step in if there’s danger.”
Wes nodded once.
Silas looked at the photograph again.
“Wes.”
“Yeah?”
“If she says she doesn’t want my protection…”
He struggled with the sentence.
Respecting another person’s no had somehow become more difficult for him than commanding a hundred yeses.
May you like
“…then we stop.”
Wes left without comment.
