Chapter 5 - WHAT CAMILLE DID BEFORE THE BOMB
Declan did not lower the gun.
“Start talking.”
Dr. Aris entered slowly.
At fifty-six, he carried himself with the controlled patience of a physician who had spent decades delivering terrible news without allowing his own feelings into the room.
Today, the calm looked thinner.
Camille stepped between him and Declan.
“Put the gun down.”
“No.”
“Declan.”
“Eight months.”
Her expression changed.
“Do not use that every time you want me to obey.”
He stared at her.
Then lowered the weapon.
Not because she ordered him to.
Because she was right.
Dr. Aris exhaled.
Gavin remained seated against the desk, one hand pressed to his bleeding temple.
Declan held up the ferry ticket.
“Why Moretti?”
Aris looked at Camille.
She nodded.
He answered.
“Because six months ago Mrs. Walsh remembered something.”
Camille sat on the edge of the desk.
“A sentence.”
Declan waited.
“The morning of the explosion, before I left the island, I had a conversation with someone.”
“Who?”
“A Moretti intermediary.”
Declan’s face emptied.
“Before the explosion?”
“Yes.”
Tessa stared at Camille.
Even Gavin looked shocked.
Declan’s voice became dangerously soft.
“How long had you been dealing with them?”
“I wasn’t dealing with them.”
“You were speaking to them without telling me.”
“One meeting.”
“Why?”
Camille rubbed her palms together.
A nervous habit Declan remembered from their early marriage.
“I found transfers from Walsh shipping accounts into three subcontractors I didn’t recognize.”
“You handled foundation accounts, not shipping.”
“I found them because one of the companies donated to the foundation.”
“What companies?”
“Shells.”
“For Moretti?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
Declan looked toward Gavin.
Gavin’s expression had become unreadable.
Camille continued.
“I thought someone inside your organization was moving money to them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She laughed once without humor.
“Because two years ago your answer to almost everything was violence.”
Declan looked away.
That answer was difficult to dispute.
“I wanted proof before I put a name in your hands.”
“So you contacted an enemy family.”
“I contacted a man who claimed he wanted out.”
The intermediary had agreed to speak only once.
A quiet breakfast in a hotel near SeaTac.
Camille had gone alone.
“He told me Walsh schedules were being sold.”
Declan went still.
“Whose schedules?”
“Yours.”
Gavin looked up sharply.
Camille saw it.
“He said somebody close to you was giving Moretti travel windows, shipment rotations and security changes.”
Declan looked at Gavin.
“So you knew about a leak before the bombing?”
Gavin shook his head.
“No.”
Camille’s eyes remained on him.
“Yes, you did.”
Gavin’s face changed.
Barely.
But Declan saw it.
Camille continued.
“The night before the explosion, I told Gavin.”
Declan turned toward him.
Gavin stood despite the blood running down his cheek.
“That isn’t how it happened.”
“It is exactly how it happened.”
“You told me somebody was selling information. You didn’t say Moretti.”
“I said enough.”
“You said you thought you had found irregular security billing.”
“I told you I was scared.”
The hurt in Camille’s voice altered the room.
“You told me you would handle it quietly.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened.
Declan stepped toward him.
“What did you handle?”
“Nothing.”
Tessa spoke from behind them.
“That isn’t true.”
Everyone turned.
She looked terrified again.
But she kept going.
“Two weeks ago Mr. Shaw spoke to me in the laundry room.”
Gavin closed his eyes.
Declan did not look away from him.
“What did he say?”
Tessa swallowed.
“He asked what I had seen.”
“Camille?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He told me Mrs. Walsh recovering would create complications.”
Camille stared at Gavin.
Tessa reached into the pocket of her gray uniform.
She removed a white envelope.
The hospital logo printed on the corner belonged to the Seattle medical system where her mother received treatment.
Inside was a cashier’s check.
Declan read the amount.
$86,400.
Tessa’s mother’s remaining debt.
Declan lifted his eyes.
“You tried to buy her.”
Gavin immediately shook his head.
“I tried to get her out of the house.”
“With eighty-six thousand dollars?”
“I knew what she owed.”
“Because you ran her background check.”
“Yes.”
Tessa’s eyes filled with anger.
“You told me I could make my mother safe if I forgot what I saw.”
Gavin looked at her.
“I told you to take your mother and leave Seattle.”
“You said forgetting would be healthy.”
“Because people die when they know too much.”
“You didn’t sound like you were warning me.”
“I was.”
The sincerity in his voice gave Declan pause.
Not enough to trust him.
Enough to listen.
Camille stepped closer.
“Who were you warning her about?”
Gavin did not answer.
Declan grabbed his coat and shoved him into the desk.
“Who?”
Gavin’s anger finally surfaced.
“You think I wanted any of this?”
“I don’t know what you wanted.”
“My wife alive.”
The words came out raw.
Everyone stopped.
Gavin’s wife, Elise, had died four years earlier after an aggressive cancer tore through her body in less than eighteen months.
Declan had attended the funeral.
Gavin looked at Tessa’s cashier’s check.
“When Elise got sick, insurance covered almost nothing experimental.”
Declan slowly released him.
Gavin looked ashamed now.
Not frightened.
Ashamed.
“Moretti offered money.”
Camille whispered, “For what?”
“At first?”
Gavin looked at Declan.
“Your schedule.”
Nobody spoke.
Gavin’s shoulders dropped.
“One dinner. One hotel. One flight.”
Declan stared at the man he had trusted for seventeen years.
Gavin continued.
“I told myself nobody would get hurt.”
Tessa looked at him with something colder than hatred.
“You knew better.”
Gavin nodded once.
“Yes.”
Declan’s hand curled into a fist.
“Did you give them the morning Camille left this house?”
Gavin did not answer.
Declan stepped closer.
“Did you?”
Gavin looked toward Camille.
His eyes were wet.
“I was trying to keep Tessa alive.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Gavin drew a slow breath.
May you like
Then said the sentence that changed everything again.
“The bomb wasn’t supposed to happen.”
