Chapter 162

[ 1,239 words ]

Julian’s POV

I was not much further ahead than Delia on that front. I suspected. I had been suspecting for months the timeline, the Monaco keycard, the tyre mark in a Dubai port road, and the way she talked about racing with the fluency of someone who had lived inside it. I had said Kat Kensington out loud to an empty office and felt it land like a fact.

But I did not have proof.

Suspicion was not confirmation. And the conversation I needed to have with Katia was not one I could walk into with suspicion. I needed to say it to her face and watch what happened next.

She had placed the names on the table and watched my face for a reaction.

I had given her nothing.

Because I had realised, standing on that terrace in the cold, that Delia did not know. Not the full picture. She had fragments – the certificate, the aliases, and the existence of a prior marriage. She had been building something from those fragments, and she had decided tonight to test how much she actually had.

The answer was ’not enough p>

Not yet.

I got up at five and went to my study.

I had noticed it three weeks ago. Small things: the laptop at a slightly different angle than I had left it. A folder in the filing drawer that had been replaced in the wrong order. The passkey that Grandma’s birthday unlocked, which I had changed immediately when I noticed the angle of the laptop, but which had clearly been used before I changed it.

Delia had been in my study.

I did not know how many times or how long or exactly what she had found. But she had been in here, and she had been careful about it, and she had found enough to walk onto a terrace last night and say, ’Jules and Kat’, with the confidence of someone who had done their research.

I called a security firm at five fifteen. By eight AM two technicians were at the estate installing a biometric locking system on the study door. Hand scan only. No passkey. No override. If your hand was not in the system, the door did not open. I had it registered to two hands, mine and Grandma Celeste’s.

Delia’s hand was not in the system.

Nobody else’s was either.

When the technicians left, I stood in the study and looked at the desk and thought about what she had found. The marriage certificate – she might have found it. The file labelled K – she might have opened it. The folder with the investigators’ reports and the search records and six years of dead ends.

But not the connection.

Because the connection was not in any document. It lived in my head — in forty-three photographs and an Instagram timeline and the head tilt exactly to the left and a tyre mark still warm in a Dubai port road at two in the morning. None of that was in a file. None of that was on a laptop. It was in me, assembled from evidence that no investigator had put together because no investigator had been looking at both sides of it simultaneously.

Delia had found the marriage certificate and decided to use it as a weapon.

She didn’t know it was pointing at her own sister.

I called Zane at seven.

He appeared at the estate at seven thirty with coffee and the expression of a man who had been awake for most of the night himself.

“Talk,” he said.

“Delia knows about Vegas,” I said. “The certificate. The aliases. She has been in my study — I don’t know how many times. I’ve now had the lock changed.” I picked up my coffee. “Last night on the terrace she told me she knew. She said Jules and Kat p>

Zane was quiet for a moment. “How much does she actually have p>

“Fragments,” I said. “She knows the certificate exists. She knows the names on it. She does not know Jules is me — she has no knowledge of my racing alias. And she does not know who Kat is p>

Zane looked at me steadily. “But you think you do p>

“I suspect,” I said. “There is a difference p>

“A small one at this point p>

“Not small enough,” I said. “I am not walking into the most important conversation of my life on a suspicion. The timeline fits. The circuit fits. Dubai. The way she carries herself in a room. All of it points in one direction.” I paused. “But pointing is not proof. And until I have sat across from her and said it and watched her face, I do not know. Not for certain p>

“And Delia?” Zane said.

“Delia cannot connect Jules to me because she does not know I race,” I said. “And she cannot connect Kat to anyone without a surname. She has two aliases and a six-year-old document and an investigator who has been hitting walls for weeks. What she has is not enough.” I paused. “Not yet p>

“Then use the window,” Zane said quietly. “While she is still putting pieces together, you talk to Katia. Today p>

“Yet,” Zane said.

“Yet,” I agreed.

We sat with that.

“Victor,” Zane said. “She is feeding him something. We don’t know what p>

“Whatever she found in my study goes to Victor,” I said. “That is the assumption we work from. Which means Victor may know about the marriage certificate. He may know about the search for Kat.” I looked at the window. “He does not know Kat is Katia. If he did, he would have used it already p>

“So we have a window,” Zane said.

“A small one,” I said. “And it is closing p>

Zane looked at me. “Julian. The conversation you told Katia you were going to have — tomorrow. That was last night. It’s tomorrow p>

I said nothing.

“You need to tell her,” Zane said. “Before Delia connects the last dot. Before Victor does. Before anyone else in that family does.” He paused. “She needs to hear it from you p>

“I know,” I said.

“Today,” Zane said.

“I know, Zane p>

“Not tonight. Not this afternoon. This morning. You call her and you p>

“I know.” I stood up. I walked to the window. Outside the estate was grey and still; the oak tree my father had planted was completely bare now in the November cold. “I have been carrying this for six years. I have been searching for six years. And every time I got close to telling her, something moved — Victor, Delia, Dubai, the thirty days, the dinner.” I turned. “I am not going to tell her over a phone call. I am going to tell her properly. In person. Today p>

Zane looked at me for a long moment.

“Don’t wait past noon,” he said.

I picked up my phone.

I called her.

She answered on the second ring.

“I need to see you,” I said. “Now. Not your office. Somewhere private p>

She didn’t answer right away. “How private, Daddy p>

Fuck!

“Just us,” I said. “No Sam. No Zane p>

“Give me an hour,” she said.

“One hour,” I agreed.

I hung up.

I stood in my study with the new biometric lock on the door and the marriage certificate in the safe, and six years of searching finally arriving at its last morning.

One hour. I was ready.

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