“None of that happened.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because on two of those dates, the locations listed in the reports were rooms you never entered.
Your cleaning assignments and door-access records prove it.”
Bellamy’s face lost its color.
Caleb looked at her again.
This time there was accusation in it.
“You said the paperwork was real.”
Mrs.
Bellamy snapped, “Be quiet.”
Roman’s voice cut between them.
“No.
Let him speak.”
Caleb rubbed his jaw.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then the man who had towered over Ava on the marble floor began trying to save himself.
“She told me Ava was going to become a problem,” he said.
“She said the kid was leverage.
Not like hurting him.
Just scare her enough that she stopped asking questions.”
Ava’s stomach turned.
Roman’s expression darkened.
“What questions?”
Caleb hesitated.
“About Trina.”
There it was.
Ava remembered mentioning Trina only once after her first day.
She had asked another maid where Trina had gone.
The woman had immediately changed the subject.
Apparently the question had traveled upstairs.
Bellamy pointed at Caleb.
“He assaulted an employee and now he is inventing instructions to escape responsibility.”
Caleb laughed bitterly.
“You called me twenty minutes ago.”
“Prove it.”
Roman picked up his phone.
“I can.”
For the first time, Mrs.
Bellamy looked afraid.
Roman had not been bluffing when he said he had records.
After Trina’s vanished complaint, he had ordered a limited internal audit that Bellamy did not control.
Calls placed through estate extensions were logged.
Security access changes required secondary authorization.
The investigation had not yet been complete when Ava was attacked.
Roman seemed to understand the ugliness of that timing.
He looked at Ava.
“I knew someone was abusing the disciplinary system,” he said.
“I did not know you were about to be hurt.”
Ava held his gaze.
“But you knew enough to investigate.”
“Yes.”
“And they were still working here.”
Roman did not defend himself.
“Yes.”
Ava appreciated that more than an excuse.
