Chapter 10 - Clare Had Heard Caleb Asking Questions
Clare had dismissed the conversation when it happened.
Two weeks before the conference, she stood in the mansion kitchen while Ellie ate apple slices and Dominic’s rehabilitation specialist finished a routine visit.
Caleb walked in.
He chatted casually.
Asked how Dominic was adapting.
Asked whether the prosthetic still required frequent adjustments.
The specialist answered only in general terms.
Caleb then asked:
“Does he take it off during long meetings?”
The specialist laughed.
“Sometimes he gives the leg a break.”
Clare remembered feeling something odd.
Not fear.
Intrusion.
Caleb did not normally ask about Dominic’s rehabilitation.
Then he asked whether the outer cover came loose often.
The specialist corrected him.
It should not.
Caleb changed the subject.
Clare forgot the exchange.
Until now.
That was the Chapter Ten reversal.
Caleb had been gathering access information before Dominic officially scheduled the ethics meeting.
Which meant he may have known Dominic planned to expose the crash earlier than everyone assumed.
How?
Arthur insisted he never told him.
Vincent did not know until days later.
Clare had not known at all.
Dominic searched his own memory.
Then remembered one conversation.
Ten days earlier, he called Caleb into his study.
He did not reveal the whole plan.
He only said:
“I’m done carrying the crash for both of us.”
Caleb became silent.
Dominic thought the message was clear emotionally.
Apparently Caleb heard it operationally.
“When are you doing this?” Caleb asked.
Dominic refused to answer.
But the executive calendar already showed a closed board conference two weeks later.
Caleb did not need the details.
He connected them.
So his questions about the prosthetic began afterward.
This reinterpreted the attack.
Not a sudden panic on meeting day.
Preparation.
The device had not been planted because Caleb accidentally found an opportunity.
He had been looking for one.
But another reversal came with it.
Arthur had not leaked the meeting.
Dominic himself did.
Not intentionally.
He believed he could confront Caleb halfway—warn him emotionally while withholding formal timing.
Instead, he gave a frightened man enough information to anticipate exposure.
Vincent saw Dominic’s expression.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn this into your fault.”
Dominic looked at him.
“I gave him the warning.”
“You gave your oldest friend a chance to prepare for honesty.”
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“He chose preparation for something else.”
That distinction mattered.
Dominic could acknowledge his choices without absorbing Caleb’s.
May you like
For eighteen months he had done the opposite.
That ended now.
