Chapter 9 - An Offer With Teeth

Isabel's breathing stabilized after a treatment. The doctor called the episode a severe asthma flare, made worse by dust and stress. Naomi sat beside the hospital bed counting the beeps of a monitor because counting was easier than imagining what could have happened.

At midnight, a black sedan stopped outside the clinic. Daniel Sterling got out alone.

"You can't keep showing up like this," Naomi told him. "Your wife has a complaint against me."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't a legal strategy."

He looked through the window at Isabel sleeping. "The building should have had working sprinklers. The invoices were approved from my office."

"Your signature is on them."

"I signed a certification package, not the individual purchase orders. I should have checked. I trusted people I shouldn't have trusted."

"And a woman died."

Daniel flinched. "Yes."

She didn't let him look away. "My mother. Her name was Rosa."

"I know her name."

"Then say it when you testify."

He rubbed his hands together. "Vanessa's father, Conrad, controls the company's construction accounts. The new city deal would move some of the same contractors into another dozen buildings. If the old fraud becomes public, the financing collapses."

"Good."

"People's housing could collapse with it. That's what scares me."

Naomi was too tired for a clever answer. "You don't get to use families as a shield for people who cheated them."

Daniel handed Maya a folder of public subsidiary names and banking references. Maya accepted it without promising to keep his visit secret.

As he stepped toward his car, his phone rang. A woman's voice came through the speaker, sharp enough for Naomi to hear.

"Daniel," Vanessa said, "tell her the deal."

His face drained.

"What deal?" Naomi asked.

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The passenger door opened. Vanessa climbed out in a cream coat, one cheek still faintly pink, and smiled at Naomi like the ballroom had never happened.

"I can make every problem in your life go away," she said. "But first, you're going to apologize to me on camera."