Chapter 3 - The Birthday Guests
By eight the next morning, Julian had called me seventeen times.
His messages grew progressively less arrogant.
The first was an order.
Call me.
The fourth was an accusation.
You're making this worse than it needs to be.
The ninth was a warning.
Don't do anything stupid with the house.
The seventeenth was different.
Mom, please. We need to talk.
I was sitting in Daniel's conference room when it arrived.
Across the table sat a private investigator named Evelyn Shaw.
She was fifty-two, with short dark hair and the expression of a woman who had heard every lie imaginable.
Daniel had hired her years earlier to investigate an embezzlement case.
Now she was looking into my son.
"I want the names of everyone who witnessed the assault," she said.
I gave them to her.
There were eight guests.
Two couples Julian knew through business.
A real estate developer.
A venture capitalist.
And a woman named Serena Blake, who worked in corporate communications.
"Did anyone intervene?" Evelyn asked.
"No."
"Did anyone record it?"
"I don't know."
"Did you see anyone holding a phone?"
I closed my eyes.
I remembered the crystal chandelier.
Chloe laughing.
Julian shouting.
A man standing beside the bar.
His hand raised.
His phone pointed toward us.
"Yes," I said.
"Who?"
"Marcus Bell."
Evelyn wrote down the name.
Then she asked, "Why was Marcus there?"
"He invested in one of Julian's companies."
"How much?"
"I don't know."
She exchanged a glance with Daniel.
"What?" I asked.
Daniel opened another folder.
"Julian's company is in serious financial trouble."
I frowned.
"He told me it was expanding."
"It has been borrowing money to cover operating expenses."
"How much?"
"At least four million dollars that we can identify."
My mouth went dry.
"And the mansion?"
"May be the centerpiece of a much larger deception."
Evelyn leaned forward.
"Margaret, we need to know whether your son assaulted you because he lost his temper or because he wanted to intimidate you into signing something."
I stared at her.
The question hadn't occurred to me.
Then I remembered something.
Before Julian hit me, Chloe had brought a document into the living room.
She had placed it on the coffee table.
"Your mother can settle everything tonight," she'd said.
I hadn't paid attention.
I was too hurt by Julian's rejection of the compass.
But now I remembered the pen.
The paperwork.
Chloe's impatient expression.
And Julian saying, "Just sign it, Mom."
I sat upright.
"They wanted me to sign something."
Daniel's face darkened.
"What?"
"I don't know."
Evelyn closed her notebook.
"Then that's where we start."
At that moment, Daniel's assistant knocked.
"There's a woman downstairs asking for Mrs. Vance."
"Who?"
"Serena Blake."
I stared at the door.
"One of the birthday guests?"
May you like
The assistant nodded.
"She says she has a recording."
