POV: Evelyn

Gideon wanted to apologize in a room without a camera.

Miriam read the request aloud, then looked at me over her glasses.

“No,” I said.

“That was my recommendation.”

We sat in the investigators' interview suite, waiting for a controlled meeting his lawyer had requested. Gideon had offered a complete document set after the sample disclosed my mother's old surname. The prosecutors had accepted delivery, not his conditions.

I had agreed to attend a limited session about the financial records I knew. My lawyer would stay beside me. I could leave whenever I wished.

Maeve had checked me that morning. The changes in my hearing were still being assessed; she had found no immediate reason to keep me at the clinic. I had promised to call if anything changed and postponed trying to coax further changes until tomorrow.

Silas waited in the adjoining room.

Before I entered, he had brushed a strand of hair behind my ear and said, “You don't owe him an audience.”

“I want to hear what he thinks he can buy.”

His eyes had darkened. Then he kissed my forehead and let me go.

Now Gideon came in wearing a suit that probably cost more than my first car.

He paused when he saw the camera.

His lawyer spoke quietly to him. He sat.

“Ms. Reed.”

“Mr. Rusk.”

He placed a slim folder on the table, squared it with the edge, and waited until everyone was looking at him.

I remembered him watching women become amounts on a screen. Today he seemed more concerned with whether the chair suited him.

“I regret the circumstances that brought us here.”

The investigator opposite him uncapped her pen.

“Which circumstances?”

His smile thinned.

“My company relied on assurances that have proved unreliable.”

“From Sabine?”

“Among others.”

His lawyer slid forward the folder. The investigator accepted it and confirmed that it would be logged with the materials already submitted.

“No terms have been agreed,” she said.

Gideon looked at me.

“I believe Ms. Reed may find my assistance particularly valuable.”

I kept my hands on my lap.

“Then provide it.”

“There are family questions. Matters that could affect your daughter's future.”

Miriam leaned forward. “You will not use the child to negotiate with my client.”

“It was an observation.”

“Then make your next one relevant to the records,” the investigator said.

He opened the folder.

The first pages bore Sabine's approvals for restricted access to old family references. Some dates predated Red Cedar. Others linked the older files to later intake lists.

He pointed at a signature.

“Her authority. Her selection criteria.”

“Your payments,” I said.

He looked up.

I recognized the account reference from the exports Owen and I had examined. I asked the investigator to display the corresponding transaction, already included in the case material.

It appeared on the monitor behind her.

Gideon's lawyer shifted closer to him.

“This client has not conceded the interpretation of those transfers.”

“We're asking about the entry,” the investigator replied.

I read the description aloud. Administrative participation.

“What did you do for that money?”

“Managed complex relationships.”

“With the women?”

“With the institutions involved.”

His voice had become patient, almost instructional. I could imagine younger employees nodding just to stop feeling foolish.

I waited until he finished explaining why medical supply networks required coordination.

Then I pointed to the date.

“This payment increased when the women arrived. What changed in your administrative work that evening?”

He looked at the figure rather than at me.

The investigator asked him to answer.

His lawyer requested a break.

They left together. Miriam offered to end my participation there, but I wanted to hear the answer if he chose to give one.

While we waited, another investigator entered carrying a newly logged submission. Sabine's counsel had responded to questions about the approvals by supplying the associated distribution schedule.

The lead investigator read it before showing the relevant page to Gideon when he returned.

His name appeared beside the largest personal share.

For a moment, the careful expression disappeared.

“She sent you that?”

“We are verifying it against the bank returns,” the investigator said. “The account numbers match records we already hold.”

“Those distributions were agreed privately.”

His lawyer touched his arm.

Too late.

I looked at the page. He had spent the first half of the meeting presenting himself as the man who could expose somebody else. Now he wanted the agreement between them treated as private.

“So you weren't only paid to coordinate,” I said.

He turned toward me.

“Do you think any of this could have operated without funding?”

The room went silent.

His lawyer spoke over the next breath and ended the questioning. The investigator stopped, noted the time, and arranged for the documents to be retained through counsel.