Chapter 4 - THE COST OF BEING COUNTED OUT
Valerie Kessler refused to speak to Gideon over the telephone. She would talk to a licensed attorney or a police investigator, she said, but she would not discuss a former patient's medical records with an unverified caller, even one whose name appeared on the building where she once worked.
"Good," Gideon told Naomi. "I wouldn't have trusted her if she'd done it."
Naomi arranged a formal interview in Milwaukee. Gideon wanted to attend, but the road conditions and his ongoing treatment made the trip difficult. For the first time in months he did not interpret that limitation as a verdict on his usefulness. He authorized Naomi to proceed, then asked for a secure video call during any portion Kessler consented to share.
"You know she may tell us things you don't want to hear," Naomi warned.
"That has become a theme."
That evening, Neta closed the bakery early. A rumor had spread that she was helping a crime boss expose his rivals. Two customers canceled orders. A man in a leather jacket stood across the street for nearly an hour, filming the storefront. Flores advised documenting the activity without assuming that every stranger belonged to Declan.
Neta understood the advice. She also understood that an empty register paid no rent.
"You need to let me run the place tomorrow," Yvonne said.
"I can't ask you to take the risk alone."
"You didn't ask. I'm your sister. I already made the decision."
Neta had known Yvonne since before either had learned how to tie her shoes. They had fought over sweaters, television time, and who got their mother's recipe box after the funeral. The idea that Neta could protect her sister by keeping her ignorant was insulting and absurd.
"Okay," Neta said. "But we open together. And the police get the camera footage."
Laith sat at the kitchen table drawing a birthday cake with forty candles and three stick figures. One figure had a large circle beneath it. "That's Mr. Croft's chair," he explained. "It looks like a race car."
Neta sat beside him. "How did he seem to you?"
"Like a grown-up who's mad but doesn't know where to put it."
She stared at her son. "Where did you learn to say that?"
"You said it when the oven broke."
She laughed despite herself. Children were appalling archivists. They remembered the exact sentence adults hoped had vanished into the air.
The next day, Gideon received a visitor he had not expected. His former chauffeur, Lewis Brand, appeared at the gate with a signed appointment request. Lewis had driven Gideon for twelve years before resigning shortly after the ambush. Gideon had assumed the man left because he found the new demands of wheelchair transport unpleasant.
Lewis entered the study carrying a baseball cap twisted in both hands. "I'm sorry I didn't come to your birthday," he said.
"Nobody came. You'd have fit right in."
Lewis's eyes filled. "Declan told us you didn't want people to see you. Said you'd asked for a private evening."
"That's not true."
"I know now."
The chauffeur explained that during Gideon's hospital stay, Declan had restricted visitors and controlled outgoing messages. Several staff members were told that Gideon wished to sever ties with anyone associated with the failed ambush. Some believed it. Others were too intimidated to challenge it.
"Why didn't you call me directly?" Gideon asked.
Lewis looked at the chair, then at Gideon's face. "Because I thought you'd fired me. And I was ashamed to ask if it was because I wasn't useful anymore."
The answer struck with more force than an insult. Gideon had spent months thinking everyone avoided him because of his disability. Lewis had spent the same months convinced Gideon despised him. Declan had created two lonely men and let each blame the other.
"What happened the day Arthur died?" Gideon asked.
Lewis swallowed. Arthur had called him that morning and requested a ride to the courthouse. Lewis had been intercepted by a message supposedly from Gideon's office canceling the trip. He had obeyed because the sender knew private details about Gideon's schedule. A few hours later Arthur was dead in a car crash on a rain-slick service road.
"I kept the message," Lewis said. "I never deleted it."
Naomi took a forensic copy through a technician. The number belonged to a prepaid phone. Its location history, if recoverable, might place it near the estate or Declan's office. It did not yet prove murder. It did, however, contradict the official story that Arthur had chosen to travel alone.
In Milwaukee, Kessler agreed to meet Naomi in a clinic conference room with a representative from her professional liability insurer. She confirmed that Gideon had been medically capable of making decisions after his injury, although medication occasionally made meetings difficult. She had never recommended giving Declan broad authority over his affairs.
"Did you witness this signature?" Naomi asked, showing the document.
Kessler went pale. "Absolutely not. I was in Denver."
"Did you sign a narrower instrument?"
"No. I specifically warned Mr. Croft about pressure to delegate business decisions while he was in pain."
The doctor opened a folder she had brought for her own protection. Inside was a letter written the month after Gideon's ambush, addressed to his personal attorney, advising that he should receive independent legal counsel before executing anything affecting ownership or voting rights. The letter had been mailed by tracked post and marked delivered.
Naomi checked the address. It was not her office. It was the suite of the attorney who had represented Gideon until Declan introduced a replacement.
"Did you ever receive a response?" Naomi asked.
"No. Then the hospital administrator told me my services were no longer required."
That night, Gideon reviewed the deposition over secure video. His first impulse was to demand that everybody who had kept him uninformed be dragged into his office. Instead, he wrote down the names, dates, and decisions that needed independent review. Rage was easy. Building a record that could survive examination was harder.
Neta, meanwhile, discovered that someone had attempted to buy the bakery's commercial lease. Her landlord called to say an unnamed investment firm had offered to assume the building's debts if he agreed to terminate her tenancy at the next renewal.
"Who made the offer?" she asked.
"They didn't leave a name."
"They left a number."
The landlord paused. Then he read it to her.
Neta repeated the digits to Flores. The detective recognized a number associated with an office-services company used by Declan's freight partners. She did not tell Neta to ignore the threat. She recommended a housing and commercial tenancy attorney, and arranged for Neta to speak with a city small-business advocate about emergency lease protection.
Gideon heard about the attempt through Thomas. He called Neta and offered to buy the building outright.
"No," she said before he finished.
"It would solve the problem."
"It would make you my landlord."
"I wouldn't raise the rent."
"That's not the point."
He was silent. Neta heard the distant squeak of a chair moving across polished flooring.
"You're right," he said finally. "What do you need?"
"I need the people who sent that offer stopped. I need my lease honored. And I need to earn my own living."
"Then I'll give the attorney whatever evidence I have. Nothing more unless you ask."
She exhaled. "Thank you."
Before closing, Neta called the commercial tenancy attorney and asked for a written summary of her options. The attorney explained that she could contest improper termination notices, request copies of communications between the landlord and prospective purchasers, and document disruptions to her business. None of those steps guaranteed a quick outcome. Neta wrote the instructions on the back of an unused pastry order, then transferred them to a folder marked LEASE. The word looked reassuringly ordinary. She had spent so many days reacting to other people's emergencies that making a plan about rent, documents, and deadlines felt like reclaiming a piece of her own life. Yvonne brought her a cup of tea and sat down without offering advice. Sometimes companionship was simply another person willing to stay while the paperwork got done.
At eight that evening, Laith insisted on sending Gideon a voice message. Neta approved it after listening to the recording.
"Mr. Croft, it's Laith. My mom says you had a hard day. The bakery has leftover cookies. You can have one if you're not mean to people. Also your chair should have a turbo button. Bye."
Gideon played the message twice. He had threatened men with worse consequences for less criticism. Instead he sent a short reply: I will work on both problems.
But the levity ended when Naomi called with the preliminary account review. Declan had used the broad power-of-attorney instrument to move substantial holdings into a new company, Walsh Strategic Services. The beneficiary lists included names from Arthur's forty-chair seating plan.
"They weren't merely keeping people away from your birthday," Naomi said. "They were assembling the votes to transfer control."
Gideon looked at the empty dining room beyond his study. Forty places. Thirty-nine absences. Arthur's warning had been literal and strategic at once.
Naomi continued. "One vote is still missing. A trustee's signature."
"Whose?"
"Marina Santos."
May you like
Before Gideon could answer, Thomas entered with a fresh security report. A woman in a green scarf had appeared on the north gate camera, standing alone in the rain. She held up a silver ring, turned toward the intercom, and said, "Tell Gideon Croft Arthur didn't die where they found his car."
Then the picture went black.
