Chapter 314: Sean Little Sister

Sean looked at the third question.

The first two were the questions of someone who had done research and was verifying it. The third question was something else. The third question was a fifteen year old who had just found out she had a brother and understood that he was the only person in the world who could answer it.

He sat with it for a while.

Then he typed back.

Yes. I know how to read contracts. And yes I’ll tell you about her. Not over text. In person, if it gets to that.

Fair, she said. That was four not three by the way.

You asked three, he said. I answered three.

You answered four technically, she said.

You’re going to be difficult about this, he said.

Probably yes, she said. Sorry. No I’m not sorry. It’s just how I am.

Sean looked at his phone.

’She talks like Catherine,’ he thought.

The specific pattern of it. The directness and then the self-correction and then the refusal to actually retract. He’d watched it in his mother’s face for sixteen years and hadn’t expected to find it coming back through a text message from a fifteen year old in the financial district.

He put his phone down.

He opened the Vertex board update and tried to read it again.

He got through two paragraphs before he stopped.

He thought about what he knew about Richard Miller so far.

A man who had hired an investigator seven years ago. Who had found Catherine and found Sean and had watched for two years. Who had called because his daughter sent him a text that asked if he knew he had a son.

He thought about what drove that.

Not guilt exactly. Guilt at twenty-four had produced the wrong choice. Something older than guilt. The specific awareness of a man in his fifties who had built the thing he was supposed to build and had everything that was supposed to come with it and understood that two things could be true simultaneously: that the life was real and that something important was missing from it.

Sean thought about a union that had been broken in the 1980s.

He thought about James Walsh losing his pension.

He thought about Catherine at twelve watching her family lose what they had to a company whose name was on buildings all over the city.

He picked up his phone.

He called James.

"James," he said when his driver answered.

"Sir," said James.

"I need to know something," said Sean. "When you look for someone. A private investigator. The serious kind. What’s the difference between one who finds facts and one who finds the full picture."

A pause. James was not a man who answered questions without understanding them. "The difference is whether they understand that facts and context are separate things. A fact tells you what happened. Context tells you what the fact means."

"Who does context," said Sean.

"Laurent does," said James. "In Paris. But for domestic I have someone."

"Their name," said Sean.

"Her name," said James. "Eleanor Vance. She worked federal financial crime for twelve years before going independent. She’s expensive and she’s thorough and she doesn’t deliver partial pictures."

"Send me her contact," said Sean.

"Already sending," said James. "Is this related to this morning’s call."

Sean held the phone.

"Yes," he said.

"I’ll make a note," said James. "Anything else sir."

"No," said Sean. "Thank you James."

He ended the call.

Eleanor Vance’s contact arrived in thirty seconds.

He looked at it.

He thought about whether he needed the full picture before he decided anything. He thought about what Max would find tonight and whether that was enough or whether there was something specific about the union situation that required a different kind of investigation.

He thought about Catherine at twelve.

He called Eleanor Vance.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Vance," she said. Direct and without warmth, the professional hello of someone for whom warmth was a resource allocated selectively.

"My name is Sean Miller," he said. "I was referred by James Okafor. I need a full picture on a man named Richard Miller. Not just his current position. His complete history. The Miller Development Company’s founding. A union dispute in the 1980s specifically. What happened to the families involved. What happened to one family named Walsh."

A brief silence. "That’s a specific brief."

"I know what I’m looking for," said Sean. "I just need someone to find it cleanly."

"Timeline," said Eleanor Vance.

"What’s your standard," said Sean.

"Three days for the thorough version," she said. "Forty-eight hours for the outline."

"Forty-eight hours for the outline," said Sean. "Then we discuss the thorough version."

"Retainer," she said. "My standard is seven thousand. Expenses additional."

Sean transferred it.

[7,000 dollars spent]

[Balance: $68,760,707]

[14,000 dollars received — 2x baseline]

[New Balance: $68,767,707]

"Received," said Eleanor Vance, with the specific professional acknowledgment of someone confirming rather than thanking. "I’ll have the outline to you in forty-eight hours. How do you want it delivered."

"Email," said Sean. "Encrypted."

"Of course," she said. "Mr. Miller."

"Yes."

"The Walsh family," she said. "Is that personal."

"Yes," said Sean.

"Then I’ll be thorough about that section specifically," she said. "Some things need the full picture more than others."

She ended the call.

Sean sat at his desk.

He picked up his coffee. Cold now. He’d been on calls long enough that the coffee had gone cold, which happened on mornings that held more than most mornings.

He texted Clara.

Board update. Your note in section four about the Fischer timeline. You’re right about the compression. I’ll have thoughts for you before noon.

She replied at nine forty-one.

I know I’m right. I was being diplomatic about it in the document. A pause. Six days.

He looked at that.

Six days, he replied.

She sent back a single period, which was Clara’s version of the warmth she didn’t perform.

He put his phone down.

He looked at the window.

He thought about a man named Richard Miller who had called because his fifteen year old daughter had sent him a text.

He thought about Sophie sending him three questions and knowing it was four.

He thought about what Catherine would have said.

Something short. Something accurate.

He thought he knew what it would have been.

He waited eighteen years, she would have said. That’s long enough to be either cowardice or courage depending on what he does with the time he has left.

She always knew which thing a thing actually was.

He picked up the Vertex board update and read it from the beginning.

At eleven thirty he went to his economics lecture.

At twelve fifteen he texted Sophie.

Three questions or four doesn’t matter. You asked the right one last.

She replied in under a minute.

I know. And then: Thank you for saying you’ll tell me.

He put his phone in his pocket and went to the campus café and bought a coffee and sat at his default bench and thought about a Thursday morning that had started as a Thursday morning and had become something that was going to require considerably more than a Thursday to fully understand.