Chapter 38 Vivienne Moves In
“He can’t do that,” I said.
Zael was already on his phone. Two steps away from the bench, voice low, the call connecting before I finished my sentence. Damien picked up fast.
“Vivienne Holt is standing in the building courtyard with luggage,” Zael said. “Gerald apparently registered a guest unit on the fourth floor under a company subsidiary. Is that possible?”
A pause on Damien’s end.
Then: “Give me three minutes.”
Vivienne set her second bag down and looked around the courtyard with the calm of a woman who had already decided the outcome of this situation and was simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.
“I’m not trying to make this uncomfortable,” she said.
“Then leave,” I said.
She looked at me. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. Gerald moved me out of the house this afternoon. Said the situation there was too unstable.” A small shrug.
“This was his solution.”
“Gerald’s solutions tend to serve Gerald,” I said. “Not the people inside them.”
Something shifted in her expression. Fast. Then gone.
Zael’s call ended. He looked at us both. “The unit exists. Fourth floor. Registered eighteen months ago under a subsidiary that predates our current legal dispute.” His voice was flat. “Gerald filed a temporary occupancy notice three hours ago. It’s technically valid for fourteen days pending a counter-filing.”
Fourteen days.
Gerald had given himself fourteen days to use Vivienne as a weapon inside this building and wrapped it in paperwork clean enough to take time to dismantle.
“Counter-file tomorrow,” I said to Zael.
“Already texting Claire,” he said.
Vivienne picked up her bags. “Which floor is the elevator?”
She was settled into the fourth floor unit by ten-thirty.
I knew because I could hear her moving around above us… footsteps across the ceiling, a drawer opening, the exact sound of a person making themselves at home in a space that wasn’t theirs and intended to behave as though it was.
Zael sat at the table with his laptop open with an expression of a man who had revised his threat assessment three times in the last hour.
“She’s not here for a room,” he said.
“I know.”
“Gerald is running out of legal moves against the investigation. So he switched to psychological ones.”
He looked at the ceiling briefly. “Vivienne in this building means someone in close proximity who can watch our movements, report back and create friction between us at a range Gerald can’t manage from outside.”
“And she’ll do it with a smile,” I said. “That’s what makes her effective.”
“She won’t have access to anything that matters. Claire has the files. The secure channel is offsite.” He looked at me. “The only thing she can actually damage from up there is…”
“Us,” I said.
He held my gaze.
“Yes,” he said.
We sat with that for a moment.
Outside the lamp in the courtyard continued its quiet indifference to everything happening around it.
“Go sleep,” Zael said finally. “Tomorrow is the injunction hearing. We need to be sharp.”
I went.
I didn’t sleep well.
By six AM I was dressed and at the small desk in the guest apartment running through the hearing documents Claire had sent overnight. Annotating. Flagging. The kind of work that required focus and gave the mind something useful to do instead of running circles around everything it couldn’t resolve yet.
At seven-fifteen my phone vibrated.
Not Zael. Not Damien. Not Claire.
An internal building message. From the fourth floor unit.
Good morning. I make coffee if anyone wants some.
I’m a morning person. — V
I stared at the message for a long moment.
Then I put the phone face down and kept working.
Vivienne appeared in the main office at eight-forty.
She had clearly been up for hours… fully dressed, composed, carrying two cups of coffee with the ease of a woman who had decided that making herself useful was the fastest way to make herself permanent.
She set one cup on Zael’s desk.
He looked at it. Then at her.
“I need something to do,” she said. “I’m not good at sitting still.” She glanced around the office. “Gerald never let me be involved in anything real. I can file. Research. Whatever helps.”
“You were on Gerald’s payroll three weeks ago,” Zael said.
“I know.” She didn’t look away. “And before you say it… yes, I know what that means. I know what I did. I know what he told me to do and I know I did most of it.” She set the second cup on the edge of my desk without looking at me. “I’m not asking for trust. I’m asking for something to do while I figure out what comes next.”
I looked at the cup she’d placed on my desk.
Then at her.
“Why did Gerald move you out of the house?” I asked.
She met my eyes. “Because I told him I wasn’t going to keep lying to Zael. And he doesn’t keep people around who stop being useful.”
The office was quiet.
I didn’t believe her completely.
I didn’t disbelieve her completely either.
That was the most dangerous position to be in with Vivienne, the middle ground where she had enough truth in her words to make the rest harder to dismiss.
Zael said nothing.
I picked up my coffee.
At eleven-thirty I went back to the guest apartment to collect the hearing documents I’d printed that morning.
The apartment door was unlocked.
I was certain I had locked it.
I pushed it open slowly.
The room looked undisturbed.
I crossed to the desk and picked up the folder.
Then I saw it.
The evidence bag containing the photograph from the corridor… the one with my father’s accident scene and Gerald’s handwriting on the back, had been moved.
Slightly. Not dramatically. Just enough that someone who hadn’t placed it there themselves wouldn’t notice.
But I had placed it there.
I knew exactly where it had been.
My eyes moved to the small shelf beside the desk.
The evidence bag was there.
But next to it… where the locket had been sitting in its open jewelry box since I brought it back from the house… the box was open.
And the locket was in Vivienne’s hand.
She was standing in the doorway of the small bathroom. Still. Looking at the locket in her palm with focused attention.
She turned the base slowly.
Found the seam.
Her eyes came up to mine.
“What does this open?” she said.