Chapter 12 - What Intention Looks LikeDarius dropped the phone.

Not because his hand went numb.

Because for one second he forgot he was holding it.

Detective Ortiz called his name through the speaker.

He picked it up.

"When?"

"The search was made twelve days before the party."

"From Nia's tablet?"

"Yes."

"Anything else?"

Ortiz hesitated.

"Several searches involving child drowning statistics, flotation response times, and whether drowning can resemble an accidental fall."

Darius closed his eyes.

"You said you needed intention."

"This helps."

"Helps?"

"It isn't the only thing we need."

He wanted to scream.

Instead he sat down.

Investigate before reacting.

The rule felt unbearable when the person endangered was his daughter.

Ortiz continued.

"We're seeking additional warrants."

"For what?"

"Cloud accounts. Financial communications. The secondary phone we believe she used."

Darius froze.

"What secondary phone?"

"We found billing records for a device associated with Sable Ridge."

He thought of Nia's jewelry drawers.

"We never found it."

"We will."

After the call, Darius went outside.

Rex was lying near the pool.

The same place.

Darius almost told Malik to move him.

Then he stopped.

The dog was not afraid of the water.

Darius was.

He sat beside Rex.

For several minutes neither moved.

Finally Darius said, "You knew."

Rex's ears shifted.

"You knew before I did."

The dog placed his head on Darius's knee.

Darius laughed once, painfully.

"I almost had you killed."

Rex looked up.

No accusation.

No understanding of betrayal.

Only trust.

Darius found that harder to bear than anger.

Later Grace called with results from the trust audit.

Nia had not stolen directly from Ava's trust.

She could not.

Leah's safeguards were too strong.

But she had tried repeatedly to persuade Darius to consolidate his personal holdings with assets that would eventually pass to Ava.

He had declined without much thought.

Now Grace understood why Nia had pushed.

"She was trying to create a pool of property she could reach," Grace said.

"And when that failed?"

"She discovered the contingency."

Darius paced.

"If Ava died, the trust passed to me."

"Most of it."

"And she assumed she could get me to borrow against it."

"Or inherit through you later."

Darius stopped walking.

"Later?"

Grace's silence answered him.

He felt suddenly cold.

"You think I was part of the plan?"

"I think you were an asset."

That word hurt differently.

Darius had considered himself the wealthy one.

The powerful one.

The person Nia depended on.

Instead, she might have viewed him as another door.

A door between Ava's money and herself.

Grace said, "We found another document."

"What?"

"A draft amendment to your estate plan."

"I never drafted one."

"Nia's financial adviser did."

Darius sat down.

The draft would have left nearly all Darius's unrestricted assets to Nia if he died while married to her.

Ava would retain Leah's trust.

Darius had never signed it.

But his scanned signature had been inserted into a working copy.

It was not legally executed.

It was preparation.

A template for something Nia intended to complete.

That evening, Emily found Darius sitting at the kitchen island.

"You haven't eaten."

"Neither has Nia, probably."

Emily frowned.

"What?"

He told her about the searches.

Emily's face went white.

Then about the estate draft.

Emily sat down.

"Darius."

"I keep thinking about the pool."

"You weren't there."

"That's the problem."

"You came when you heard Ava."

"Too late."

"Rex wasn't too late."

Darius nodded.

Emily continued.

"And Ava survived."

"I know."

"Don't turn survival into another way to punish yourself."

He looked at her.

"When did you become this annoying?"

"Before Leah died."

For the first time in days, he smiled.

Then his phone vibrated.

Detective Ortiz.

They had found the second phone.

Not in Nia's possession.

Caleb Ward's attorney had surrendered it with other records.

There were hundreds of messages between Caleb and Nia.

Most concerned debt.

Money.

Deadlines.

Then Ortiz read one message aloud.

It had been sent the morning of the pool party.

Nia wrote:

If Rex ruins this again, I swear I'll kill that dog myself.

Caleb replied:

Forget the dog. Fix the contingency.

Darius stared out at the dark pool.

The dog had ruined it.

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Whatever "it" was.

And this time Darius was grateful.