Chapter 12. The Devil You Know

We were in the car when Ethans phone rang.

He looked at the screen and said nothing. Picked up. Whatever the person on the phone said made him go very still. He listened for thirty seconds then said two words.

"Bring him."

He hung up.

I looked at him.

"Who?"

He turned to look at me.. In his eyes was something I could not quite read.

"Daven Cole is downstairs at Voss Holdings, " he said. "He says he has something we need. Something he was given by your uncle three days ago that he did not understand until now."

My mother made a sound in the seat.

Grace said nothing. She was looking out the window like she had been expecting this.

"You are not seriously considering letting him in, " I said.

"I am seriously considering the information he is carrying, " Ethan said. "Those are two things."

The car turned around.

We went back.

Daven was waiting in a room on the ground floor when we arrived. He stood up the moment I walked in and the first thing I noticed was that he looked terrible. Not the tired kind terrible from the morning at Aunt Ritas. Worse than that. Like a man who had not slept in days and had been afraid all his life.

He looked at me. Then at Ethan standing behind my shoulder. Something moved across his face when he saw how close Ethan was standing.

I watched him clock it and file it away and say nothing about it.

"Thank you for coming, " Daven said.

"You said you had something, " Ethan said. His voice was flat and businesslike. "Show me."

Daven reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded envelope. He held it out. Not to Ethan. To me.

Ethans hand came out. Took it before I could reach for it.

Daven looked at him. Ethan looked back. Neither of them said anything but the air in the room shifted in a way that had nothing to do with the documents in that envelope.

Ethan opened it. He read in silence. His expression did not. He read the same page twice which told me something on it had surprised him. Ethan Voss did not read things twice unless they mattered.

"Where did you get this, " Ethan said.

"Your uncle sent it to me three days ago, " Daven said, looking at me. "He told me it was the piece. That once I delivered it everything would be. My debt would be cleared. I did not know what it was. I thought it was another document."

"What is it? " I said.

Ethan handed it to me.

I looked down.

It was a letter. Handwritten. Old paper slightly yellowed at the edges. I recognised the handwriting at the top immediately. My grandfathers. I had seen it on birthday cards and old letters my father kept in a box at the back of his study.

I read it slowly.

Then I read it again.

My hands were not steady by the time I finished.

"This is my grandfather's will, " I said. "The original. Not the one my father has."

"Yes, " Grace said from the doorway. She had been quiet for long. I had almost forgotten she was there. "The will your father has is a copy. A version that was altered before it was filed. Someone changed it before probate was completed. The original leaves the company between your father and his brother."

The room was very quiet.

"So he was right, " I said slowly. "My uncle. He was right that half of it belonged to him."

"Legally in the document, yes " Grace said. ". That does not justify what he has done. Two wrongs do not make a right. The way he has gone about this is criminal regardless of what the original will says."

I looked at Daven.

"He gave this to you to deliver, " I said. "Why? If this is his proof why would he hand it to you? Why not use it himself?"

Daven sat down. He looked exhausted.

"Because he does not have the original, " he said. "What he sent me is a photograph. A good one but a photograph. He wanted me to get it into your hands so you would go to your father and it would tear your family apart from the inside before he made his move.. Conquer."

I stared at him.

"He wanted me to destroy my family for him."

"Yes, " Daven said quietly. ". I almost did it. I did not know that was what it was for.. I almost did it."

The silence that followed was long and uncomfortable. Nobody tried to fill it.

Then Ethan spoke.

"Where is the original will?"

Grace and Daven looked at each other.

That look. That single shared look between two people who had never been in the room before told me everything.

"You know each other, " I said.

Neither of them denied it.

"Grace found me six weeks ago, " Daven said. "She told me what I was really part of. I did not believe her at first.. Then I did.. Then I did not know how to get out without making everything worse."

I looked at Grace.

"You were running your operation, " I said. "You did not just collect evidence. You were moving pieces. Daven. The messages to me. All of it."

"I was trying to protect you, " she said.

"By keeping me in the dark?"

"By keeping you alive " she said.. The way she said it made the room go cold.

I looked at Ethan.

He was already looking at me.

"What does she mean? " I said.

Ethan took a breath.

"Your uncle, " he said carefully. "This is not the time he has done something like this. The person before you. The person who got close to uncovering what he was doing"

He stopped.

"What happened to them? " I said.

The silence that followed was the one yet.

Nobody in that room would look me in the eye.