Chapter 84: Second Envelope

The annex had a different smell at nine in the morning. The printer toner was still there, but someone had made coffee in the break room and burned it, and the whole second floor carried the bitter edge of it.

Reed was already in the hallway when Lucas came up the stairs. He had two paper cups from the cart outside and handed one over without asking.

"Ground rules," Reed said. "Same as last time. You don’t talk to her. You don’t nod at her. If she says something about you, you let it land and you keep your face where it is. Miller asks the questions. If Miller asks you something, you look at me first."

"Why does she want me here?"

"She says it’s because you’re in the photographs." Reed drank and made a face at the coffee. "I think it’s because she wants someone in the room who’ll be hurt by what she’s about to say. People who’ve done bad things like to watch the damage land on the right person. It makes it feel like a confession instead of a deal."

"That’s a cynical way to see it."

"I’ve been doing this for twenty-six years. It’s the only way to see it that keeps me from being surprised."

Morgan opened the door to the small conference room. She had a folder under her arm and the same plastic evidence bags on the table as last week, empty and waiting.

"She’s early," Morgan said. "Brandt’s with her. They’ve been here since eight thirty."

Elena Garrity sat on the far side of the table in a gray coat she had not taken off. She looked older than she had in the lobby of Vertex three weeks ago. The confidence had not gone, exactly, but it had been folded up and put somewhere she could reach it only with effort. Neil Brandt sat beside her with a legal pad and a pen he kept clicking until Miller looked at it.

Miller came in at nine sharp and did not sit for a moment. She looked at Elena, then at Brandt.

"Your client asked to move this session up two days," she said. "I agreed. I’d like to know why before we start the recorder."

"She told you last Monday about the envelope to Mr. Danner," Brandt said. "She did not tell you everything that went out that week. Yesterday she learned that Mr. Danner had been asked to stay away from witnesses. She took that as a sign that the people she was protecting by leaving it out don’t need protecting anymore. Or don’t deserve it."

"That’s your sentence, Mr. Brandt. I’d like hers."

Elena put her hands flat on the table.

"I left it out," she said, "because I thought I could still decide which parts of this were mine to give away. I can’t. Start the recorder."

Morgan started it. Miller read the date, the time, the names of everyone in the room. When she said Lucas’s name, Elena looked at him for the first time, a short look, and then back at the table.

"The same week I sent the six prints to Chadds Ford," Elena said, "Richard gave me a second envelope. Already sealed. He’d written the address himself. He asked me to put it on the firm’s courier account the same way, same day if I could. I sent it the day after."

"Where did it go?" Miller asked.

"Baltimore. A house in Roland Park." Elena’s voice did not change. "Addressed to Helen Ward."

Lucas kept his face where it was. It took more effort than he expected. He had read the name in the exit file Victoria ordered, the former director of corporate development, the referral source who had walked Cole into Vertex two years ago. He had not heard anyone say it out loud before.

[Name Match: Helen Ward.]

[Prior Reference: Exit file. Former Senior Director of Corporate Development, Vertex. Referral source for Cole.]

[Advisory: Host has no independent knowledge. Do not supply any.]

"Did you see what was inside?" Miller asked.

"Not that one. It was sealed when he gave it to me." Elena paused. "But it was the same weight. Same size. Same cardboard stiffener. I’d packed the first one myself. I know what six prints feel like in a nine-by-twelve."

"Was there anything else? A note?"

"On the outside, in the corner, under the address, he’d written two words in pencil. I thought it was for the courier. It wasn’t." She looked at the wall above Miller’s head. "It said, ’Your turn.’"

Nobody said anything for a few seconds. The recorder’s red light kept blinking.

"Did you ask him what that meant?" Miller said.

"I asked him who she was. He said she was an old friend of the company. He said she owed him a favor from the Halcyon diligence and she’d know who to show them to." Elena’s mouth tightened. "I told myself that meant a lawyer. Or a reporter. I told myself a lot of things that month."

"Did Mr. Sterling ever tell you that Ms. Ward and Mr. Danner knew each other?"

Brandt’s pen stopped clicking. Elena thought about it longer than she had thought about anything else that morning.

"He said, once, that Helen was the one who ’knew which directors listen.’" She said it carefully. "That’s the exact phrase. I remember because I didn’t like it."

Miller wrote it down. Morgan wrote it down. Reed, beside Lucas, did not write anything, which Lucas had learned meant he was memorizing it.

"Why did you want Mr. Vintage here for this?" Miller asked.

Elena turned her head and looked at Lucas properly this time.

"Because I’ve spent three weeks watching people decide things about him in rooms he wasn’t in," she said. "Richard did it. I did it. That director did it. I’m not going to say this part with him outside the door like he’s an exhibit." She turned back to Miller. "That’s all. It’s not noble. I’m just tired of it."

[Target: Elena Garrity.]

[Target State: Cooperating. Motivation: exhaustion, self-protection, residual guilt. No attraction detected. No leverage recommended.]

Lucas found he did not know what to do with that, so he did nothing.

The rest took an hour. Dates. The courier account number. Who at Pell and Garrity could have seen the second slip. Whether Elena had ever met Helen Ward. She had not. Whether Richard had ever mentioned page forty-seven. Miller asked that one in a flat voice and Elena answered it in a flat voice: no, never by number, but in the last month he’d talked about "the analyst who moved the money" like it was a story someone had told him over dinner.

When it was over, Morgan bagged Elena’s copy of the courier ledger, and Brandt took his client out the side door without looking back.

Miller stayed in her chair.

"Roland Park is Maryland," she said, mostly to Morgan. "I can’t send a detective to knock on that door. I can call a colleague in Baltimore County and I can send a preservation letter to Ms. Ward and to anyone who represents her. Today."

"And if she shredded it two weeks ago?" Reed asked.

"Then she shredded it two weeks ago, and we’ll ask her about that under oath." Miller finally looked at Lucas. "Mr. Vintage. You do not contact Helen Ward. You do not look her up. You do not ask Ms. Verman if she remembers her from the old days. If Ms. Ward contacts you, you do what you did on Saturday."

"Don’t answer. Call Reed."

"Good." She stood. "Your interview with Pellman and Hoyt is still tomorrow at ten. Nothing that was said in this room goes into that room. Two separate inquiries. If you can’t keep them apart, tell Reed now and we’ll move one."

"I can keep them apart."

"Everyone says that." She picked up her folder. "Prove it to me by Friday."

[Quest Issued: Two Rooms.]

[Objective: Give a complete, truthful account to Pellman and Hoyt on page 47 without referencing anything from the state inquiry.]

[Reward: 400 AP.]

[Failure Condition: Cross-contamination of inquiries.]

Out on the sidewalk the wind came straight down the street from the river. Reed buttoned his coat and stood with his back to it.

"You looked like you knew the name," he said.

"From the exit file. Victoria showed it to the GC in 2B. I saw it on the screen."

"Then that’s where you know it from, and that’s the only place, and if anybody at Pellman and Hoyt asks how you know it, you tell them that." Reed squinted down the street. "This is the part that gets people. Not the lying. The remembering where you heard things."

"I’ll keep a list."

"Don’t keep a list. Lists get subpoenaed." Reed almost smiled. "Keep it in your head. Go home. Eat something. Camilla’s interview is at two. Don’t text her before. After four, you can text her that you’re thinking about her. Nothing else."

He went home and made eggs and ate them at the table. He read the library book and got two pages further than yesterday, which felt like progress of a kind. At two he looked at the clock and thought about the twelfth floor on Market Street, a court reporter’s fingers moving, Camilla in a navy cardigan sitting very straight because she always sat very straight when she was frightened.

At four twelve he texted her.

Thinking about you. No need to answer.

She answered at four forty.

Done. Three hours. They had my desk phone logs printed out in a binder this thick. My lawyer was good. I want soup and I don’t want to talk about it.

I can bring soup.

Then bring soup. Denise is here. Bring enough.

He bought two quarts of chicken and rice from the place on Ridge and drove out to Roxborough with them on the passenger seat. Denise opened the door, took the bag out of his hands, and said, "She’s in the kitchen pretending she’s fine. Go help her pretend."

Camilla was at the counter cutting bread too thick. She did not look up.

"Don’t ask," she said.

"I wasn’t going to."

"I know. That’s why I said you could come." She put the knife down. "They asked about the dormant account for an hour. I told them everything I know. Which isn’t much, and you already know all of it." She finally looked at him. "That’s all I’m saying, and now I’ve said more than I should."

"Then let’s eat."

They ate soup at the kitchen table while Andre did homework in the next room and complained about fractions. Denise told a long story about a woman at her church who had parked in the pastor’s spot for six years. Camilla laughed once, a real one, and Lucas felt something in his chest loosen.

[Target: Camilla Verman.]

[Relationship Status: Wary Ally.]

[Trust Trend: Rising. Note: Host honored instruction boundaries. No AP issued.]

He drove home at eight. Victoria had texted twice.

Recused from three things today. One of them was a flower order for a board member’s hospital stay. I am apparently too compromised to approve tulips.

Then: Tomorrow. Still on the calendar. I’ll bring dinner this time. You’ll bring the chain.

He was smiling at the phone when it rang. Reed.

"Miller’s preservation letter went to Roland Park at three," Reed said. "At five forty a lawyer in Towson called her back. Not to stall. Not to threaten." He paused. "Helen Ward wants to come in. Voluntarily. She says she has the envelope, it’s never been opened, and she wants to hand it over in person."

"That’s good, isn’t it?"

"It’s fast," Reed said. "In my experience, people who’ve done nothing wrong take a week to find a lawyer. People who are scared take a day." His voice went quiet. "She called the same afternoon. Ask yourself who she’s scared of."