Chương 5
He had replaced the crooked tie with no tie at all.
My mother disliked him immediately because he asked her to leave.
“She’s my daughter.”
“And she’s a witness.”
“I’m also a witness to her being my daughter.”
Bell looked at me.
“Your call.”
“Stay.”
He sighed.
“Fine.”
My mother folded her arms with quiet satisfaction.
Bell placed a thin folder on the tray.
“We found Dr. Shah’s car.”
My heart accelerated.
“Where?”
“At Sky Harbor.”
“Airport?”
“Yes.”
“Did she fly somewhere?”
“No record of her boarding a flight.”
“Then why was the car there?”
“We don’t know.”
I hated that phrase.
Bell seemed to hate it too.
“There’s more.”
He pulled out a printed image.
It was grainy surveillance footage from a parking structure.
Priya stood beside her car at 4:06 Wednesday morning.
A man in a baseball cap was several feet behind her.
His face was turned away.
“She drove herself?”
“As far as we can tell.”
“What happened after that?”
“The camera coverage in that section cuts out for about nine minutes.”
My mother made a sound of disbelief.
Bell lifted a hand.
“Before you ask, no, we don’t think someone hacked the airport.”
“Then what?”
“Maintenance failure.”
“How convenient.”
“It started three days earlier.”
My mother looked annoyed that reality had complicated her suspicion.
Bell placed another image beside the first.
Priya was entering an elevator alone.
Time stamp, 4:08.
A third image showed the elevator doors opening one level lower.
The man in the cap was inside with her.
Priya was not visible.
I stared at the picture.
“Who is he?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Chloe has male relatives?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Bell hesitated.
“Her stepfather.”
My mother leaned forward.
“What’s his name?”
“Graham Mercer.”
The surname struck me oddly.
“Mercer.”
Bell watched me.
“What?”
“Chloe uses Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t her father’s name?”
“No.”
“She took her stepfather’s surname when she was sixteen.”
“Why?”
Bell closed the folder.
“That part I wanted to ask you.”
“I barely know her.”
“Your husband does.”
My mother said, “Then ask him.”
“We did.”
I looked at Bell.
“And?”
“He told us Graham Mercer basically raised Chloe after her biological father left.”
“Basically?”
“That was his word.”
Bell paused.
“He also said Graham worked for Blake’s father for years.”
I felt the first shift.
Not fear exactly.
Recognition.
Blake’s family had always been full of people described vaguely as longtime associates.
Men who appeared at holidays without being relatives.
Women who knew which wine his father preferred but were introduced as old colleagues.
The Stanford business empire had started with commercial real estate and expanded into logistics, construction, private equity, and whatever else could be acquired without disturbing the family mythology.
“What did Graham do for Blake’s father?”
“Security.”
My mother’s eyebrows rose.
“What kind?”
Bell looked at me.
“Corporate security.”
“That means nothing.”
“I agree.”
He leaned back.
“We pulled his employment history.”
“And?”
“He left Stanford Group eleven years ago.”
“Why?”
“No official reason.”
My mouth went dry.
“When did Chloe and Blake break up?”
Bell’s eyes sharpened.
I answered my own question.
“Eleven years ago.”
My mother turned toward me.
“You think that matters?”
“I don’t know.”
Bell’s expression suggested he thought it did.
“What did Blake say about their breakup?”
“That she left Phoenix.”
“She didn’t.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Not immediately.”
Bell opened the folder again.
“According to school and employment records, Chloe remained in Maricopa County for another fourteen months.”
A pressure started behind my eyes.
“Then Blake lied.”
“Or he believed what he was told.”
That distinction sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
I looked at the ceiling.
Everyone around Blake seemed to specialize in deciding what he should believe.
“What happened fourteen months later?”
“She moved to Nevada.”
“For how long?”
“Six years.”
“And Graham?”
“He moved there the same month.”
My mother asked, “With her?”
“Same address.”
Bell tapped the folder.
“Then both came back to Phoenix about two years ago.”
“Before Chloe reconnected with Blake.”
“About six months before.”
I looked toward my mother.
She had gone very still.
Bell continued.
“Graham currently works as a risk consultant.”
“For whom?”
“He has several clients.”
“That means someone is hiding the important answer.”
Bell almost smiled.
“One of his recent clients was Stanford Group.”
The room seemed to cool.
“Blake hired him?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You said Stanford Group.”
“Contracts can be approved by multiple executives.”
“My father-in-law.”
Bell said nothing.
That silence was answer enough.
Blake’s father, Richard Stanford, had never liked me.
He was too disciplined to be openly cruel.
Cruelty would have implied emotion.
Richard specialized in correction.
The first Christmas after our wedding, he had asked whether I planned to return to work because “idle intelligence tends to become domestic dissatisfaction.”
When I told him I was happy, he asked whether happiness had ever been a reliable performance metric.
I had laughed because everyone else did.
Later, Blake told me his father simply did not know how to talk to people.
I had accepted that explanation too.
My phone buzzed.
We all looked at it.
An unknown number.
Bell said, “Don’t answer yet.”
The phone buzzed again.
A text appeared.
I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO PRIYA.
My mother gripped the chair.
Bell moved closer.
A second message arrived.
DO NOT TRUST BLAKE’S FATHER.
Then a third.
ASK BLAKE WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THE NIGHT CHLOE “LEFT” PHOENIX.
Bell photographed the screen with his department phone.
“Don’t respond.”
Another message appeared.
YOU HAVE UNTIL TOMORROW BEFORE GRAHAM MOVES HER.
My throat tightened.
“Priya is alive.”
Bell did not answer.
The sender had not said that.
I knew it.
I also knew what I needed to believe.
A final message appeared.
Blake’s name filled the screen beneath the text.
HE WAS THERE THAT NIGHT.
I looked at Bell.
“What night?”
He gathered the printouts slowly.
“That,” he said, “is something your husband has apparently spent eleven years not telling anyone.”
My mother stood.
May you like
“Then bring him here.”
Bell looked at me.
