Chapter 7 - The Transfer at Midnight
The handwritten instruction changed the direction of the investigation.
It did not settle the question of who wrote it.
An invoice could be altered.
A note could be added later.
A company name could appear on paper without the owner knowing what happened on a dock.
Detective Cross needed records and witnesses who could connect the instruction to a real decision.
Derek Moss agreed to another interview with counsel present.
He admitted that the October trip had not been a training exercise.
He said he was instructed to meet the gray launch, receive a passenger, and take that person to a marina farther down the coast.
He claimed he believed the transfer was voluntary and that he had been paid through Raymond Crowe's security company.
"Why did you fall into the water?" Cross asked, according to the account later disclosed in the case.
Derek said the passenger refused to step onto his boat.
There was an argument.
Someone pushed the smaller boat away from the launch before he had secured a line.
He lost his balance and fell.
He could not say whether the push was deliberate.
He denied seeing anyone force the passenger overboard.
The account was incomplete, but it matched enough of Leo's drawing to make the child's memory harder to dismiss.
I learned those details in stages through counsel and confirmed reports, not through an instant confession delivered to my doorstep.
At the same time, Sarah Kim advised Camille about the continuing welfare review.
Leo had begun waking at night and asking whether the dark water could come into his bedroom.
His fear was not a performance for adults.
He was seven, and the memory of a dangerous night had become mixed with the fear that speaking about it might make his father leave him.
A child therapist began working with him on sleep, safety, and the right to tell trusted adults when something frightened him.
I attended no sessions unless invited by the people responsible for his care.
After my public post, I wanted more than ever to prove I would not use his private feelings to build my own case.
Camille let me send Leo a short letter.
I wrote that I was sorry I'd allowed strangers to learn about his drawing, that he'd done nothing wrong, and that the adults were responsible for keeping him safe.
I did not ask him to remember anything else.
A week later he sent back a picture of a tree with three people standing beneath it.
One figure was Camille.
One was me.
The smallest was Leo, holding both our hands.
I placed it beside my bed and cried quietly.
Julian asked to meet with Camille and Sarah.
He said he was trying to protect Leo from Raymond, whose company had been pressuring him over business records related to Nadia.
"Then why did you threaten Lila?" Camille asked.
"Because she had the drawing."
"Why was that a threat?"
Julian looked at the window instead of his sister.
"Raymond knew a child had seen the dock."
The room went silent.
"How?" Sarah asked.
"One of the guards told him. I thought if Lila left, the attention would die down."
"You thought removing the person Leo trusted would protect him?"
"I thought it would stop Raymond asking questions."
Camille's voice shook.
"You were scared of a business associate and punished your son for it."
Julian did not deny her words.
He admitted he had taken Nadia aboard the launch.
He said he believed she would be moved to a safe place after agreeing to stop cooperating with investigators.
He claimed he hadn't understood that Raymond's people intended to threaten her further.
"You knew she had a lawyer," Sarah said. "Why didn't you let her go to that lawyer?"
Julian lowered his head.
"Because her evidence would have destroyed the company."
The admission answered one question and opened another.
If Nadia had been handed to Raymond's men, where was she now?
May you like
That evening, Detective Cross received word from Nadia's former counsel.
The lawyer had a message from someone claiming to be Nadia, who wanted to know whether the dock investigation had finally moved beyond Julian's own statements.
