Chương 3
Hayes glanced at Claire.
“I’ll document the message, preserve the number, and return it. Ms. Ortiz has already provided a copy of her original recording. We’re verifying the timestamp and file history.”
“Is Daniel under arrest?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because finding out somebody lied is not the same as knowing why.”
Claire folded her arms.
“He told you he was at work.”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t.”
“That appears to be correct.”
“And there’s video of him leaving a house with two children inside while it’s filling with smoke.”
Hayes’s eyes settled on her.
“I didn’t say what the video shows.”
“Lena did.”
“That’s why we verify things.”
Emily looked toward Daniel again.
“Did he see them?”
Hayes waited.
She hated the pause because she had learned that detectives used silence when answers had consequences.
“We don’t know yet,” he said.
“What do you know?”
“We know your husband told us he was at his office from approximately eight-thirty until he received a call about the fire. His employer’s physical access records don’t support that statement. Neither do the building’s exterior security records.”
Emily said nothing.
“We know Ms. Ortiz has footage that appears to show Daniel’s vehicle at your residence during a time he told investigators he was elsewhere.”
“And after the fire started?”
“We’re still establishing that.”
“You saw it.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Hayes looked toward the church.
“Mrs. Carter, I’m not going to interpret evidence for you in a parking lot at your sons’ funeral.”
The formal name stung.
Mrs. Carter.
As if she and Daniel still belonged in the same sentence.
Hayes softened his voice.
“But I am telling you this: do not delete anything from your phone. Do not confront your husband alone. If he contacts you, save the messages.”
Emily almost laughed again.
“Confront him?”
Hayes met her eyes.
“You asked him a question in there that I need to understand.”
“How long they were breathing.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you ask it?”
Emily looked down at her hands.
“Because if he was there, then he knew something.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
“No.”
She looked up.
“But he was afraid I’d find out.”
That night Emily slept in Claire’s spare room without sleeping.
Claire lived in a narrow townhouse fifteen minutes from the church. She had turned her office into a bedroom by pushing a desk against the wall and laying clean sheets over a foldout couch.
At two in the morning, Emily sat on the edge of it wearing one of Claire’s old college sweatshirts and stared at a box of cereal on the dresser.
Marshmallows.
Tiny colored moons and stars.
Claire had bought it months ago for the boys.
Emily picked up the box and read the nutrition label because reading something ordinary was easier than looking at the cartoon shapes on the front.
Her phone, returned by Hayes, vibrated.
Daniel.
She let it ring.
Then again.
Then a text appeared.
We need to talk before this gets worse.
Emily read it three times.
Before this gets worse.
She typed, Worse for who?
She erased it.
Another message came.
Mom was out of line today. I’m sorry she hit you.
Emily stared at that one longer.
Not I’m sorry I didn’t stop her.
Not I’m sorry people blamed you.
Not I’m sorry I lied.
Mom was out of line.
Daniel had always been good at using grammar to step around responsibility.
She had once found a hotel receipt in his coat pocket during a conference in Phoenix. He had said, That shouldn’t have been there, as if the receipt had committed an administrative error.
Nothing had happened, he later insisted. A coworker had booked rooms under several names because of a reservation issue.
Emily had believed him partly because she wanted to and partly because Noah had the flu that week and she lacked the energy to dismantle a marriage.
She put the phone facedown.
Claire appeared in the doorway wearing pajama pants with cartoon lemons on them.
“You’re awake.”
“So are you.”
“I had to pee.”
“You’ve been standing there for thirty seconds.”
Claire leaned against the doorframe.
“I also checked whether you were breathing.”
Emily looked at her.
Claire rubbed one eye.
“That sounded less creepy in my head.”
Emily looked back at the cereal box.
For a while neither spoke.
Then Emily said, “I left them with him.”
Claire came farther into the room.
“You left your children with their father.”
“I knew things weren’t good.”
“What things?”
Emily pressed her palms together.
“Daniel had been taking pills again.”
Claire’s face changed.
“What pills?”
“Pain medication. Sometimes sleeping pills. I don’t know. After his back surgery he had prescriptions. Then he didn’t. Then somehow he always had something.”
“You told me he stopped.”
“He said he did.”
“Emily.”
“I know.”
“No, I’m not—”
“You’re thinking it.”
Claire sat beside her.
“I’m thinking I wish you had told me.”
“I was embarrassed.”
“About him?”
“About me.”
Claire frowned.
Emily picked at a loose thread on the sweatshirt.
“I kept making rules. No pills if the boys were home. No drinking with them. If he felt like he needed something, he had to tell me. Then I’d find a bottle and he’d say it was old. Or I’d smell whiskey and he’d say he had one drink. Every time I changed the rule, it made me feel like I was doing something.”
Claire was quiet.
“The night they died,” Emily said, “he looked sober.”
“Looked?”
“He was making grilled cheese.”
Emily stopped.
The memory arrived with the smell first.
Burned butter.
Daniel always used too much heat.
Liam had been sitting on the kitchen counter even though Emily hated when he did that, swinging his bare feet against a cabinet door while Noah colored at the table. Daniel had waved a spatula and told her to leave before she found another reason not to.
Go. I’ve got them.
May you like
Emily’s divorce consultation had been at eight.
She had not told Daniel it was a divorce consultation.
