Chương 4
“What about it?”
“It was charging upstairs.”
“That won’t help if it wasn’t on you.”
“No, but the charger is beside the bedroom window.”
Ruiz waited.
“I went upstairs around eleven thirty.”
“How does that help?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The disappointment in my own answer irritated me.
Ruiz tucked the notebook away.
“It’s okay not to solve your own case from a hospital bed.”
“I’m not trying to solve it.”
“You’re trying very hard not to feel helpless.”
That annoyed me more because it was true.
After she left, I asked Leah for my phone.
The device had been collected by police, but my sister had brought a tablet from the house.
My sister.
I had forgotten she was coming.
Nora arrived ten minutes later carrying a canvas tote, my favorite gray cardigan, and enough anger to power half of Chicago.
She stood in the doorway for several seconds without moving.
Nora was five years older than me and had spent most of our lives pretending nothing frightened her.
Seeing me in the hospital made the pretense collapse.
Her mouth tightened.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
She put the bag down.
Then she came to the bed and touched my hair.
I started crying immediately.
It was humiliating.
“I look terrible.”
“You always did have terrible timing.”
I laughed once and regretted it because pain seized my abdomen.
Nora panicked.
“Jesus, don’t laugh.”
“You made me.”
“I take it back.”
She hovered uselessly while I pressed the pillow against my stomach.
For a minute, neither of us spoke.
A food cart rattled down the hallway.
Somebody in another room complained loudly about gelatin.
Nora sat in the visitor chair.
“Mom wants to come.”
“No.”
“I told her no.”
“Thank you.”
“She said I don’t get to decide.”
“She’s right.”
“I hung up.”
“That works too.”
Nora looked toward the discarded water cup on my tray.
“Flynn came.”
“Yes.”
“I saw him downstairs.”
My body went rigid.
“He’s still here?”
“Not now.”
“What happened?”
“He tried to talk to me.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing useful.”
“Nora.”
“I told him if he came near you again, I’d finish what the police interrupted.”
I stared at her.
“That is exactly the kind of useful thing you should not say to someone whose lawyers bill by the minute.”
“I know.”
“You’re an attorney.”
“Tax attorney.”
“Still attorney-shaped.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“I wasn’t operating at professional capacity.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Then she looked at me carefully.
“He knows about the babies.”
“Yes.”
Her face twisted.
I had told Nora about the pregnancy the morning after the third test.
She was the only person who knew.
For weeks, she had been urging me to tell Flynn or leave him, preferably both.
She reached into the tote and removed a small velvet box.
My chest tightened.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your dresser.”
Inside was the tiny pair of silver baby shoes I had bought online three days before the stabbing.
They were ridiculous.
Too expensive.
Too small to have any practical purpose.
I had ordered them because I couldn’t stop imagining two cribs.
“Put them away.”
Nora closed the box immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I shouldn’t have brought them.”
“I asked you to get things from the drawer.”
“I thought you meant everything.”
“It’s fine.”
Nothing was fine.
Nora tucked the box back into the bag.
Then she leaned forward.
“Mabel, there’s something else.”
The tone changed the room.
“What?”
“When I went to the house, there were people from Flynn’s company there.”
“Why?”
“They said they were securing confidential business materials from his home office.”
“He keeps corporate files there.”
“I know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“One of them was Selina.”
I stared at her.
“Selina was in my house?”
“Yesterday.”
“After what happened?”
“Yes.”
“How did she get inside?”
“She had a key.”
The words sat between us.
I had never given Selina a key.
Nora continued before I could speak.
“I asked her why she was there.”
“What did she say?”
“That Flynn had asked her months ago to keep an emergency copy because she sometimes handled documents for him.”
“Selina doesn’t work for Vance Global.”
“I know.”
“She hasn’t worked there in two years.”
“I know.”
I pulled at the edge of the blanket.
The movement hurt, but I needed my hands occupied.
“Did Flynn give her the key?”
“She said he did.”
“Did you ask him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want him to know I thought it mattered.”
I looked at my sister.
Nora had always been impulsive until there was money or paperwork involved.
Then she became terrifyingly patient.
“What did she take?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
“Nora.”
“She wasn’t carrying company files.”
“What was she carrying?”
“An external hard drive.”
My breathing slowed.
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see her take it?”
“No.”
“Then it could have been hers.”
“It could.”
She reached into her purse and removed her phone.
“I took a picture.”
“Nora.”
“What?”
“You photographed her?”
“I photographed my own sister’s hallway.”
“With Selina standing in it.”
“She should develop better hallway instincts.”
Despite everything, a laugh tried to escape.
I stopped it before my incision punished me again.
Nora enlarged the photograph.
Selina stood near the staircase wearing black pants, a cream sweater, and an expression of irritation directed toward someone outside the frame.
Under her arm was a rectangular silver drive.
I knew it.
“That’s mine.”
Nora went still.
“You’re sure?”
“I bought it before I left Blackwell Capital.”
“What was on it?”
“Old personal files.”
“What kind?”
“Taxes, photographs, copies of contracts, some investment models I was allowed to retain.”
“Anything about Flynn?”
I looked at the image again.
Then my stomach seemed to drop beneath the hospital mattress.
“Our prenup.”
Nora’s expression sharpened.
“Why would she care about your prenup?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming a problem.”
“I know.”
The following morning, Detective Ruiz arrived before breakfast.
May you like
This time, she wasn’t carrying coffee.
She placed a clear evidence bag on the bedside table.
