The address Nia had found for Victor Holloway’s private study led me to a discreet office building downtown, far from the polished halls of City Hall. The door, a heavy oak panel, felt cold under my knuckles. I knocked once, twice.
The door opened. Victor stood there, impeccably dressed as always, but his eyes were rimmed with a faint redness I hadn’t noticed before. He looked surprised to see me.
“Mr. Banneker,” he said, his voice flat. “I believe all communication is now through our legal teams.”
“I’m not here about the injunctions,” I said, holding up the crumpled printout of the Grady Memorial record. “I’m here about Eleanor.”
His gaze dropped to the paper in my hand. For the first time, I saw something break through his controlled exterior. A flicker of something raw, something almost like terror, crossed his face.
“What is that?” he demanded, his voice dropping, a sudden tremor in it.
I stepped forward, pushing the document into his hand. “This is her true medical record, Mr. Holloway. Nia found it. It says she died from lead poisoning, not ‘general health decline.’ It names municipal water infrastructure.”
Victor’s fingers clamped around the paper, his knuckles white. He scanned it, his eyes darting across the familiar handwriting, the dates, the diagnosis. His face, usually a mask of stone, began to crumple.
He stumbled backward, bumping into a dark mahogany desk, scattering a neat stack of papers. A framed photograph, of a smiling woman with warm eyes, fell with a soft clatter. Eleanor.
He didn’t pick up the photo. His gaze was locked on the document. His breathing grew shallow, ragged.
“They blamed her,” he whispered, his voice barely audible, a guttural sound of pain. “They said she was negligent. They buried this. They buried *her*.”
He finally looked up, his eyes glassy. The icy strategist was gone, replaced by a man drowning in grief. He saw it in my face – the dawning understanding, the recognition of a motive far deeper than political gain. My assumption of malice, of a ruthless operative, shattered. This was about a broken heart.
“You understand now,” he said, the words a raw exhalation.
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