Chapter 9 - Graham's Offer
Nora reached for the nurse-call button.
Graham raised one hand.
"If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't bring the case."
"That's not comforting."
"Fair."
He looked older than Nora remembered. Gray under his eyes. Jacket wrinkled.
"Put it down."
He set the red case on a chair.
"I took it from the ravine."
"You drove the truck into the boathouse?"
"No."
"Convenient."
"I was the one the truck was meant to scare. I had already told Celeste I was done."
Nora laughed quietly.
"Everyone in this family is suddenly done after someone nearly dies."
"I'm not family."
"You helped them. Same difference."
Graham did not argue.
He admitted falsifying environmental reports for years.
He also admitted Martin Voss had confronted him the night of the boating accident.
"Did you kill him?"
Graham looked through the glass at Sophie.
"No."
"That's not a very fast answer."
"Because I left him with Celeste."
Nora's skin prickled.
Graham said Martin planned to expose the fraud. Celeste met him at the marina. Graham walked away.
The boat exploded forty minutes later.
"You knew."
"I suspected."
"And you stayed."
"I got promoted."
There it was.
Not fear.
Profit.
Nora hated him more for telling the truth cleanly.
Graham nodded toward the case.
"Peter had copies of everything. Celeste learned about the case this week. Daniel learned it from her."
"Why bring it to me?"
"Because she plans to sell the company before federal investigators can freeze it. Tomorrow morning."
"And you want immunity."
"Yes."
Nora almost admired the lack of pretending.
She called Rourke.
Graham surrendered.
The red case contained encrypted drives, contracts, bank statements, and photographs.
But one folder was empty.
Labeled: DANIEL.
Nora looked at Graham.
"What was in it?"
"I never saw."
"Who did?"
"Peter. Daniel. Maybe Kessler."
Rourke entered and said they had found Kessler.
Alive.
Barely.
He had been tied inside an abandoned boat trailer.
When he woke, his first words were not about Celeste.
May you like
They were: "Daniel has the original.
