Diane's Signature
Chapter 06 - Diane's Signature
Marcus's lawyer asked for a private meeting at the Hale and Voss offices.
Detective Muñoz refused.
The interview took place instead in a neutral conference room at the district attorney's building, with fluorescent lights, a scratched laminate table, and a pitcher of water nobody touched.
Marcus arrived sober in a navy suit.
His lawyer, Clifford Ames, carried two legal pads and kept clicking a silver pen until Muñoz asked him to stop.
"My client is here voluntarily," Ames said.
"We've established that," Muñoz replied.
Marcus looked at the printed invoices arranged across the table.
He did not look at Sophia, because Sophia was not there.
Muñoz later allowed her to review the recorded statement after prosecutors confirmed she remained a material witness, not a target. Sophia watched it beside Grace in the detective's office, the volume low enough that they could hear the building's old radiator hiss.
On-screen, Muñoz slid the first invoice toward Marcus.
"Do you recognize this approval?"
"It's my electronic signature."
"Did you authorize the payment?"
"I authorized thousands of payments."
"Two hundred thirty-six thousand dollars to Brickline Consulting."
Marcus read the page.
"That would've come through Diane's office first."
Ames stopped clicking his pen.
"Marcus, answer only what you know."
"I know the approval chain. Diane handled vendor relationships. Accounting entered the invoice, it came to me, I approved it."
Muñoz placed the subcontractor's actual invoice beside it.
"Brickline billed eighty-four thousand."
Marcus stared at the numbers.
"That's not possible."
"Why?"
"Because the supporting packet would've matched."
"Did you read every supporting packet?"
He looked toward the camera mounted in the corner.
"Not every page."
"Did you read this one?"
"I don't remember."
Muñoz brought out five more.
The pattern repeated. Inflated charges. Duplicate fees. Payments to shell subcontractors registered at mailboxes and vacant lots.
Then she placed a corporate filing on top.
"This address belongs to a condominium owned by Diane Voss."
Marcus did not speak.
"This one is a lake property she sold four years ago. This registered agent worked as her personal accountant."
His fingers moved toward the paper, then stopped.
"She told me the vendors were special-purpose entities."
"For what purpose?"
"Insurance. Project isolation. Liability."
"Did you verify that?"
Marcus swallowed.
"No."
Ames leaned toward him.
"We should take a break."
"No," Marcus said.
The word was quiet.
Muñoz waited.
"My aunt reviewed every major subcontractor," he continued. "She negotiated rates. She said my job was liquidity and approvals."
"You were chief financial officer."
"I know what my title was."
"Did you know company money was being diverted?"
Marcus looked down.
Sophia knew that posture. Shame.
"I knew some invoices were padded," he said. "Not like this."
"How much did you think?"
"Five percent. Maybe eight. Contingencies get buried sometimes. It's not clean, but construction accounting isn't clean."
"Did you report it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
His laugh held no humor.
"Because the company was mine. Because my father was sick. Because Diane said if I started questioning every workaround, payroll would fail and six hundred people would blame me. Pick one."
Sophia paused the video.
Grace sat beside her with both hands around a cup of tea.
"He knew enough," Grace said.
"Yes."
"Not everything."
"No."
Sophia looked at Marcus's frozen face on the monitor.
Pity arrived in an unwelcome form. Not softness. Recognition.
Marcus had spent years choosing not to look directly at what benefited him. Diane had not forced his signature onto every page. She had only built a system where looking away felt easier than becoming the person who stopped it.
Sophia pressed play.
Muñoz asked about the hard drive.
Marcus rubbed his jaw.
"A former project accountant copied records before she left. Diane believed she was threatening to leak them."
"Name?"
"Lauren Beck."
"Did you recover the drive from Ms. Beck?"
"She left it in a storage locker after my attorney contacted her."
Ames turned sharply.
"That was not disclosed to me."
"You didn't ask."
"Marcus."
Muñoz raised one hand.
"Why carry the drive into the gallery?"
Marcus looked down again.
"I had nowhere safe to put it. Diane's people were checking my office."
"Her people?"
"Employees loyal to her."
"Why not take it home?"
"She has keys."
"Why Sophia's gallery?"
His face tightened.
"I saw the opening announcement. I was angry."
"That doesn't explain the drive."
"I thought Sophia might have kept an old document case from the house. It had backup passwords and archived contracts. I wanted to see whether it was upstairs."
"So you entered her event with a drive containing suspected financial evidence while planning to search her studio."
Ames closed his eyes.
Marcus said nothing.
Muñoz placed one final document before him.
It was a wire authorization from six years earlier. Marcus's signature sat at the bottom. Diane's initials appeared beside the payment instructions, small and neat.
"Do you recognize her initials?"
"Yes."
"This transfer ended in an account controlled by Diane Voss."
Marcus read the page twice.
"She said it was a reserve account."
"It funded the purchase of her condominium."
His face emptied.
For several seconds, the only sound on the recording was Ames's pen rolling across the table.
"She used me," Marcus said.
Muñoz did not comfort him.
"She may have. You also approved it."
---
That evening, Sophia stood in the studio with the blue shard in one hand and a trash bin open beside her.
She had picked it up to move it away from the direct sun. Then she had imagined Marcus's signature beneath every payment and Diane's initials tucked beside it like a private joke.
The glass felt heavier than it was.
For one ugly second, Sophia wanted no part of it. Not the broken sculpture. Not the investigation. Not another object carrying a history she had not chosen.
She held it over the bin.
Grace came upstairs without knocking and stopped in the doorway.
"Don't."
Sophia looked at her.
"It's mine."
"Exactly."
"It belongs to the worst night of my career."
"It belonged to the best piece you've made so far. Marcus doesn't get ownership because he broke the rest."
Sophia lowered her hand.
The shard caught the ceiling light and threw a blue line across Grace's yellow blouse.
"Muñoz thinks Marcus will cooperate," Sophia said.
"Because he discovered Diane stole from him too."
"Because he discovered he wasn't the smartest person in the fraud."
Grace winced.
"Accurate."
Sophia placed the shard back on the windowsill.
"He still signed."
"Yes."
"He still chose the money."
"Yes."
"And Diane made sure every choice pointed back to him."
Grace leaned against the worktable.
"People like her don't hide behind weak men because they respect them."
Sophia's phone buzzed.
A message from Muñoz asked whether she could come in the following afternoon. Marcus had agreed to make a full voluntary statement, with dates, passwords, and names.
Sophia read the message aloud.
Grace folded her arms.
"Do you believe him?"
Sophia traced one thumb along the shard's smooth outer curve.
May you like
"I believe he finally understands Diane was willing to let him take the fall."
Across town, Marcus Hale was preparing to explain what he knew and exactly how long he had chosen not to know it.
