Schemes Come to Naught novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Page One

Ines's POV

Dex read standing up, and he read the way he does everything, too fast at first.

Then he slowed down.

I watched him find March.

He sat on the edge of the archive table without noticing he had done it.

I knew each line he was on by his face, because I had written all of them.

On the ninth of March the company lawyer had sent Dex a draft to review, and my name was on the cc line because operations files the share register.

It was a trust.

Dex was the grantor, the shares were the property, and the trustee was a woman who had been at the company for seven months.

I read it at my desk with my hand over my mouth.

Then I did what I do with every problem, which is make a list.

I wrote the date, and the names, and under that: DON'T TELL HIM YET. FIND OUT WHY.

I spent a week finding out.

I went through the invoices from the consultant she had hired herself.

I found three calls to Corwin on her company phone, in her first month.

I found that the lawyer who drafted the trust was Raymond MacAvoy's old law school roommate.

On the sixteenth I told Dex once, in our kitchen, while he was packing a gym bag.

"Who is Valeria's lawyer?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to know who wrote a document with your shares in it."

He stopped with a sock in his hand.

"Ines." His voice was kind, and that was the worst part. "You don't have to be jealous. She's a consultant. It's beneath you."

He kissed the top of my head and left for the gym.

I wrote it down that night, word for word, because I wanted the record to be accurate.

Dex turned the page.

I knew which one he was on, because his shoulders dropped.

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