Chapter 7 - Caleb Tried to Make Arthur the Villain
Caleb was found at his downtown apartment before midnight.
He did not run.
That surprised Vincent.
He called an attorney.
Then denied everything.
His version was simple.
Arthur planted the device.
Ellie saw Arthur touch the prosthetic.
Arthur admitted opening the casing.
Arthur had knowledge of the crash secret.
Arthur feared Dominic correcting the record because it would expose his own role in the cover-up.
A neat argument.
Almost convincing.
Caleb even asked the obvious question:
“If I planted something in Dominic’s prosthetic, why would I do it in a foyer full of people?”
Dominic heard the question during a formal interview summary the next day.
He hated that it was reasonable.
Vincent hated it more.
“Because he thought nobody was watching.”
“Maybe.”
“You believe him?”
“No. I believe good questions still deserve answers when asked by bad people.”
Vincent leaned back.
Dominic had changed since the crash.
He used to equate confidence with certainty.
The prosthetic taught him otherwise.
Every new surface required adjustment.
Every assumption could shift under weight.
Caleb tried another line.
He claimed Ellie confused him with Arthur because both wore dark suits.
But Ellie had never identified a suit.
She identified the silver watch.
Arthur wore no watch that day.
Caleb did.
Then came another small human detail.
Clare remembered Ellie asking Caleb:
“Why did you put something away?”
At the time Clare thought the child was asking about his silver pen.
Caleb answered:
“Because grown-up things have grown-up places.”
Clare remembered the exact phrase because Ellie repeated it later while putting crayons away.
Caleb denied saying it.
That denial mattered more than the sentence.
Why deny something harmless?
Because perhaps the context was not harmless.
Still, Dominic refused to declare the case finished.
He wanted to know what Caleb believed he was preventing.
If the only threat was public exposure of the crash lie, the attack was horrifyingly disproportionate.
Maybe that was enough.
Maybe not.
Then Arthur remembered a conversation from two days earlier.
Caleb had asked:
“If Dominic tells the board everything, does he plan to tell them why he lied too?”
Arthur said yes.
Caleb responded:
“Then he’s going to destroy himself for nothing.”
Arthur told him that was Dominic’s decision.
Caleb answered:
“No. It becomes everybody’s decision once he opens his mouth.”
That sentence shifted the motive.
Caleb did not merely fear punishment.
He believed Dominic had no right to expose a secret shared by all three men.
To Caleb, Dominic’s honesty felt like betrayal.
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Because the original lie had become, in Caleb’s mind, a joint possession.
And Dominic had decided to surrender it without permission.
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