Chapter 2 - Forty Minutes Away
Victor drove Annie home himself.
No driver.
No security detail.
No assistant sitting in front answering calls.
Just Victor, his daughter, and three years of silence occupying the back seat with her.
The address was a basement apartment in Silver Spring.
Victor had driven past the neighborhood hundreds of times.
That fact felt obscene.
Annie directed him to a narrow brick building with exterior stairs descending below street level.
“Mom thinks I’m at Maya’s apartment.”
Victor looked at her.
“You came to Grand Oak without telling her?”
Annie lowered her head.
“Maya’s brother took the bus with me. I knew Grandma’s party had lots of food.”
Victor closed his eyes for a second.
Of all the explanations he had imagined for finding his daughter hungry, none were good enough to say aloud.
Annie knocked.
“Mom?”
The door opened.
Catherine Williams looked at her daughter first.
Then Victor.
Her entire body changed.
Not relief.
Fear.
She grabbed Annie and pulled her behind her.
“What are you doing here?”
Victor stared.
Catherine was thirty-eight now.
Thinner than he remembered. Hair shorter. Lines around her eyes that had not been there three years earlier.
But unmistakably Catherine.
“You’re here.”
She gave a bitter laugh.
“Where exactly did you think I was?”
“With him.”
Her expression tightened.
“Who?”
“Daniel Cross.”
Then Victor stopped himself.
For once in his life, he asked before accusing.
“My mother showed me photographs.”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“Those.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Were you having an affair?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Who was he?”
“I didn’t know his real name.”
Victor felt something drop inside him.
“He contacted me before you left for Singapore.”
“Why?”
“He said your father had hired him.”
“My father was dead.”
“By the time the man contacted me, yes.”
Annie squeezed past them.
“Mom, Dad says he sends us money.”
Catherine looked at Victor.
“What money?”
“Fifty thousand dollars every month.”
Her face went blank.
Victor knew immediately.
“You never received it.”
“Victor, I spent last winter deciding whether rent or health insurance got paid first.”
He stepped backward.
For three years, Maris had sent him quarterly summaries.
Tuition.
Housing.
Healthcare.
Transportation.
Child expenses.
Victor rarely examined them closely.
He told himself reviewing invoices from the woman who betrayed him would be petty.
He had outsourced fatherhood into a standing bank transfer.
Catherine folded her arms.
“Where did you send it?”
“A family-office account.”
Her expression changed.
“Controlled by Maris?”
Victor did not answer.
He did not have to.
Catherine laughed once.
Not happily.
“Of course.”
“What happened after Singapore?”
She stared at him for a long time.
Then she stepped aside.
“Annie needs to eat.”
Victor entered.
The apartment had one bedroom.
A pullout sofa in the living room.
A folding dining table.
A refrigerator covered in discount grocery coupons and Annie’s drawings.
Three years of explanation did not arrive as one confession.
It came badly.
In pieces.
Catherine had been reviewing old charitable-foundation accounts when she noticed unusual transfers connected to Grand Oak.
Debt payments hidden as management fees.
Family-office money used to cover hotel obligations.
Trust distributions redirected into operating accounts.
She approached Maris privately.
“I thought she deserved a chance to explain.”
“That sounds like you.”
“It was stupid.”
“Maybe not.”
“It was.”
Two days later, Maris showed Catherine photographs of herself with the man Victor knew as Daniel Cross.
Then documents supposedly proving Catherine had misappropriated foundation funds.
False documents, Catherine believed now.
At the time, she did not know.
“Your mother said if I told you about Grand Oak, she’d give you the photographs and the financial records together.”
“You think I would’ve believed you stole?”
Catherine looked at him.
“You believed I cheated.”
The answer silenced him.
Maris also threatened a custody fight.
Then Victor’s Singapore trip began.
His personal number stopped reaching Catherine.
Emails bounced.
Security credentials to the McLean house were cancelled.
Family attorneys arrived with documents Catherine refused to sign.
Brian drove her and Annie to a hotel.
Catherine expected Victor to call when he returned.
He did not.
“I wrote to your office.”
“I never got anything.”
“I emailed.”
“I never saw them.”
“I called.”
“My number changed because of a security breach.”
“I know.”
Victor looked at her sharply.
Catherine’s eyes filled.
“Your mother told me you changed it because you didn’t want us contacting you.”
Victor sat at the cheap table.
“I thought you wanted no contact.”
“You thought.”
“Yes.”
“You never checked.”
That hurt because it was true.
“I was angry.”
“So was I.”
“I was humiliated.”
“And your humiliation mattered more than finding Annie?”
Victor lowered his eyes.
“No.”
“But you acted like it did.”
Annie was eating a dinner roll at the counter.
Victor looked at her.
Then back at Catherine.
“I’m going to fix the money.”
Catherine shook her head.
“That isn’t what I need from you first.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to stop trying to solve everything before you understand it.”
Victor thought of Brian.
The fake goodbye letter.
The support account.
Grand Oak.
Catherine continued.
“You believed your mother three years ago because her story hurt your pride in a way you understood.”
She pointed toward Annie.
“Don’t make another decision because you need the next story to feel better.”
Victor stared at her.
“What do I do?”
Catherine’s answer was immediate.
May you like
“You investigate.”
For the first time that night, Victor did exactly what she asked.
