Chapter 129 #47: One Last Thing
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The warehouse smells exactly the way I remember abandoned places smelling like: rust, salt, old motor oil, and the faint metallic bite of river water creeping through cracked concrete. My boots echo too loudly on the pitted floor even though I’m trying to step lightly. Overhead, a single sodium lamp buzzes and flickers, throwing long shadows across rusted shipping containers and forgotten pallets.
I stop in the centre of the open space, my hands loose at my sides, gun tucked into the small of my back under the leather jacket. No point pretending I’m unarmed. Vincent knows better.
He steps out from behind a stack of crates thirty feet away, wearing the same dark coat from the garage footage the police showed.
“You look good as always, Nora.”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “I didn’t come for apologies or nostalgia. I came for whatever you said you have on Maya. Show me, then we’re done.”
He stops a respectful distance away. Close enough to talk but far enough that I don’t feel cornered.
“I owe you an explanation at least,” he starts anyway.
“You owe me five years of my life back. Maybe start with why I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”
He flinches. Actually flinches. The sight of it almost surprises me more than anything else tonight.
“I know,” he says quietly. “I know what I almost did. And I know you have every right to hate me.”
“See that's where you're wrong, Vincent. I don’t hate you infact.” The words come out colder than I intend. “Hate would mean I still care enough to feel something. What I feel is tired. And disgusted. Disgusted at the fact that I built a home with a man who slept with a knife under his pillow the whole time, waiting for the perfect moment to slide it between my ribs.”
Vincent’s face crumples for half a second before he locks it down again. “I really was in love with you, Nora. Somewhere between the fake smiles and the staged dinners and the way you looked at Lucy like she hung the moon... I fell. Hard. I told myself I could keep the plan compartmentalized. That I could protect you both once the ledger and the money was mine. But the deeper I went, the more impossible it became to follow through.”
“Save it.” I cross my arms. “If you brought me all the way down here in the dead of the night just to win me back, then save your breath. You just wasted both your time and mine.”
He looks at me for a moment longer, then reaches into his coat and pulls out a slim black voice recorder. He holds it up between two fingers like it’s evidence in a courtroom.
“It contains three conversations,” he says. “All recorded in the last six weeks. Face-to-face conversations between Elaine and Maya. No cuts, no edits. Apparently, Maya had dirt on Elaine and was blackmailing her. When Elaine couldn’t take it anymore, she called her bluff and I suspect that’s why Maya killed her."
I look at him. “You were there?”
He nods. “Hidden in the next room. I’d been tailing Maya for weeks after I realized she was the one pulling strings on the ledger hunt. When I saw her meet Elaine at that hotel bar on the Upper East Side, I followed. I expected to get some leverage or something... What I got was much worse.”
He presses play.
Elaine’s voice comes through first, clipped and furious.
“You think you can keep squeezing me forever? I gave you what you wanted. I pushed David toward every woman who wasn’t Nora... I played the devoted mother... nothing worked. I’m done.”
Maya’s laugh is soft, almost fond. “Oh no, Elaine dear. You’re only finished when I say you’re finished. One call to the SEC and your little side accounts disappear. Along with your reputation, your luxury life, your nice little condo... You get the gist."
“I’d rather burn it all down than let you ruin my son again.”
There’s a brief silence, then Maya's voice comes again, sounding eerily calm. “Is that your final say?”
“Yes, it is." Elaine replies with conviction.
A chair scrapes suddenly, followed by a muffled thump, then the sound of a choked gasp. Silence stretches for eight long seconds before Maya speaks again, calm as ever.
“Pity. You really should have taken the money.”
The recording cuts.
Vincent pockets the device. “There’s more. Hotel security footage I pulled showing her leaving alone thirty minutes later with no sign of Elaine. Police already have the body. They just need the who and the why. This gives them the why. And the who.”
I stare at the recorder like it might bite me. “Why give it to me? Why not take it straight to the detectives yourself?”
“Because they’d arrest me on sight. Accessory after the fact at minimum. Aiding and abetting at worst. I’m not walking into a precinct and coming out... but you can. You’re the grieving almost-widow. The mother protecting her child. They’ll listen to you.”
I swallow. “And what do you get out of it?”
“Time.” He meets my eyes. “Give me a few days to get my affairs in order. I just need a head start and you never have to see me again. Lucy never has to know the man she called Daddy once planned to kill her mother.”
The words land like punches I didn’t see coming. Despite myself, I feel a twinge of sadness at the situation. So much so that I have to lock my knees to stay upright. I swallow.
“You think that makes us even?”
“No.” His voice cracks on the single syllable. “Nothing will ever make us even after what I did. But it’s the only thing I can give you now.”
I hold out my hand and he places the recorder in my palm. It’s heavier than it looks.
“One more thing,” I say. “How did Maya know about the ledger in the first place? David never told anyone where he kept it.”
Vincent hesitates. “She didn’t know. Not exactly anyway. She knew Malcolm had something that could destroy half the board if it ever surfaced. She thought it was digital. When she couldn’t find it, she pivoted. Used Elaine to keep David distracted. Used me to keep you distracted. When David came back and started asking questions, she panicked. That’s when she doubled down on the frame job.”
I nod slowly, feeling the pieces sliding into place. “And Elaine was collateral.”
“Elaine was expendable.” He looks almost sad. “Maya doesn’t leave loose ends. And if it took you down as well, it was a win-win in her book.”
I nod, look at him one last time, and then turn toward the open loading door, clutching the recorder tight.
Vincent’s voice stops me.
“Oh, and Nora. One last thing.”
I glance back.
He steps closer, lowers his voice until it’s barely audible over the distant lap of water against the pier. “Maya's weakness is her obsession – use it against her. Goodbye, Nora.”
He leans in until his breath brushes my ear. “And I really am sorry... for everything.”
With that, Vincent steps back and disappears into the shadows but somehow, I have the distinct feeling that’s not the last of him I’ll see.