Chương 4
“I lied.”
“No kidding.”
Evelyn removed her bow tie and placed it on the counter. There was dried wine on one end.
Nora’s anger shifted when she saw the cut on Evelyn’s hand.
“Did she do that?”
“The glass did.”
“Did he drink it?”
“No.”
“You stopped him?”
“At the last second.”
Nora stared at her. “Why the last second?”
The same question sounded different from her sister. There was no procedure inside it, only hurt.
Evelyn opened the cabinet above the sink, took out two mugs, then returned one because neither of them needed coffee. She poured tap water instead.
“I thought I needed proof.”
“You thought?”
“I was wrong.”
Nora did not take the glass.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make the worst decision you can live with, then act like surviving it makes it smart.”
Evelyn leaned against the counter.
“That’s not fair.”
“No, fair was you telling me there was poison at your job before I saw you on television.”
“I couldn’t involve you.”
“You put my name on the lease application.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“The police searched my room.”
Evelyn looked toward the short hallway. Nora’s door stood open. A sweater hung half out of a drawer.
“I’m sorry.”
“Did you know she wanted him dead when you took the money?”
“No.”
“When did you know?”
“Not at first.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Evelyn rubbed her thumb against the side of the water glass.
Nora laughed without humor. “You sound like Dad.”
The comparison struck harder than the detective’s accusation.
Their father had possessed a talent for replacing facts with timing. He had not stolen money; he had borrowed it before payday. He had not driven drunk; he had misjudged the hours since his last drink. He had not abandoned them after their mother’s funeral; he had needed time to get himself straight.
He was still getting himself straight somewhere in Arizona, according to the last birthday card.
Evelyn said, “I knew enough to walk away.”
Nora looked down.
“And I didn’t,” Evelyn added.
They stood in the small kitchen listening to the washing machines beneath them enter a spin cycle. The floor vibrated faintly.
After a while Nora took the water.
“Are you going to jail?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can we make rent without that money?”
Evelyn looked at the empty place in the cabinet where she had hidden the envelope.
“No.”
Nora drank, then wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her coat.
“That seems important.”
By noon, Celeste’s attorneys had released a statement describing her as a devoted wife devastated by a calculated attempt to exploit private marital tensions. The statement did not name Evelyn, but it referred to a temporary worker who had demanded money and created misleading footage.
By one, Evelyn’s staffing agency suspended her.
By two, the hotel barred her from the property pending investigation.
At three fifteen, a reporter knocked on the apartment door.
Nora opened it before Evelyn could stop her.
The reporter was younger than either of them expected. He wore a raincoat in dry weather and held his phone like a shield.
“Evelyn Hart?”
“No,” Nora said.
His gaze moved past her. “Ms. Hart, did Celeste Vale hire you to poison her husband?”
Evelyn came down the hall. “Leave.”
“Did you accept money from Mrs. Vale?”
“Leave.”
“Are you cooperating with police?”
Nora stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind her. “She said leave.”
The reporter lowered the phone slightly. “The public is trying to understand what happened.”
“The public can try from the sidewalk.”
He looked at Nora’s coat and bare feet. “Are you her sister?”
Nora smiled.
For one optimistic second, Evelyn thought she was about to handle the situation well.
Then Nora knocked the phone out of his hand.
It landed on the hallway carpet without breaking. The reporter stared down at it. Nora stared too, as though disappointed by the durability of modern electronics.
Evelyn pulled her back inside.
“That,” Evelyn said after locking the door, “was not helpful.”
“It felt helpful.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then why do I feel better?”
Evelyn almost laughed. The sound rose and stopped somewhere in her throat.
She sat on the floor with her back against the door. Nora lowered herself beside her. For several minutes neither spoke.
Across the hall, Mrs. Alvarez opened her door, looked at them, and silently set down a plate covered in foil. Then she returned to her apartment.
Nora lifted the foil. Two grilled cheese sandwiches.
“She watches the news,” she said.
“I know.”
“Do you think she believes you?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora tore one sandwich in half. “She put extra butter on yours.”
The police returned that evening.
Detective Quinn brought a second investigator, Leo Martinez, who specialized in financial crimes and seemed mildly irritated by furniture. He refused the couch, then accepted a kitchen chair only after testing its legs.
They had Evelyn recount every conversation with Celeste.
The first had occurred at the Marlowe House powder room. The second in Celeste’s car outside a gym. The third at a coffee shop where Celeste ordered tea and never drank it. The fourth through a prepaid phone Evelyn had been instructed to purchase with cash.
“Where is that phone?” Martinez asked.
“In the evidence bag you took from my bedroom.”
“We found a phone. We haven’t established who used it.”
“I did.”
“Did Celeste ever hold it?”
“No.”
“Then it establishes contact, not identity.”
Evelyn tried not to show frustration. “Her messages are on it.”
“Messages from an unregistered number.”
“She told me things only she would know.”
“Such as?”
“The seating arrangement. Arthur’s heart medication. The decanter.”
“Things a staff member might learn.”
Nora stood at the sink washing the same mug for too long.
Quinn asked, “Did Mrs. Vale ever explicitly say she intended to kill her husband?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“That matters,” Quinn said.
“She said he wouldn’t make it through the night.”
May you like
“Exact words?”
“She said, ‘By the time they understand what’s happening, it will be over.’”
