Chương 9
Caroline wrote a name and number on the legal pad.
“We use mine too.”
“Why two?” I asked.
“Because if one misses something, I want the second person to explain why.”
She stood.
“I’ll file tomorrow.”
Flynn’s name would appear on papers.
My name would appear beneath his.
Marriage reduced to captions, addresses, dates, and requests for relief.
I expected to feel relieved.
Instead, a strange grief moved through me.
Not for him.
For the woman who had married him.
She had been so certain effort could cure indifference.
Caroline packed her pad.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“If Flynn contacts you, save everything.”
“He already did.”
“Do not discuss finances.”
“I did.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t know yet.”
“Now you do.”
She started toward the door.
“Caroline.”
She turned.
“What if he didn’t steal anything?”
“Then evidence will help him.”
“What if Selina did?”
“Then evidence will hurt her.”
“What if both of them did different things?”
Caroline studied me.
“Then stop hoping for a clean villain.”
After she left, that sentence stayed with me.
By evening, Flynn had stopped calling.
The silence bothered me more than the calls.
At seven twelve, Nora’s phone buzzed.
She read the message and went still.
“What?”
“Daniel.”
“What did he say?”
She handed me the phone.
Vance Global’s board had placed Flynn on temporary administrative leave.
Not because of the stabbing.
Because of the financial irregularities.
I read the message twice.
“He’s losing the company.”
“Temporarily.”
“No.”
Nora looked at me.
“He built his identity around that place.”
“That’s his problem.”
“It is.”
But there was no satisfaction in me.
I remembered Flynn at thirty-two, still a vice president, working until two in the morning because his father had called him soft in front of senior executives.
I remembered finding him asleep at the dining-room table with spreadsheets printed around his face.
He had wanted control long before he wanted me.
Maybe before he wanted Selina.
Control was the one relationship he had never neglected.
The next morning brought rain.
Leah opened the blinds and announced that Chicago had decided to become soup.
I walked twenty-five feet with the physical therapist.
It felt like crossing a continent.
When I returned to bed, Detective Ruiz was waiting.
She had two coffees.
She offered one to Nora.
“Peace treaty.”
Nora accepted it suspiciously.
Ruiz looked at me.
“We interviewed your husband last night.”
“And?”
“He says he cut his palm Tuesday while moving old shelving in the garage.”
“Did he?”
“There’s a healing cut.”
I pictured Flynn’s hands.
I had not noticed.
“He says he used one of his old shirts to stop the bleeding.”
“That explains his DNA.”
“It could.”
“And Selina’s blood?”
“He says he has no idea.”
Nora set down the coffee.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the shirt was left on a workbench.”
“Where Selina could access it.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the rain streaking the window.
“So Flynn’s DNA proves nothing.”
“It proves he handled the shirt.”
“That’s not nothing.”
Ruiz’s tone stayed even.
“But it doesn’t prove conspiracy.”
I nodded.
That hurt in a different way.
Part of me had wanted evidence that Flynn had known.
It would have made his violence colder but simpler.
Planning could be condemned cleanly.
Impulse was messier.
He had believed Selina without evidence because believing her fit something already inside him.
Ruiz opened her folder.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“The external drive contains copies of your old Blackwell Capital models.”
“I expected that.”
“It also contains altered versions.”
My pulse quickened.
“Altered how?”
“Account identifiers changed.”
“To mine?”
“To accounts associated with you.”
Nora leaned closer.
“Associated how?”
“Some were closed years ago.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because transaction dates can be compared against closure dates.”
Ruiz nodded.
“Our forensic team noticed.”
A small ember of my old professional self stirred.
“Whoever did this isn’t a finance person.”
“Why?”
“Because they changed labels, not infrastructure.”
Ruiz waited.
I continued.
“If you want to fabricate a believable trail, you don’t just replace account names.”
“You reconstruct the movement.”
“Yes.”
“Could Selina know that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Could Flynn?”
“Yes.”
That answer came too quickly.
Ruiz noticed.
“Would he make a mistake this basic?”
“No.”
Nora looked at me.
“You sound very sure.”
“I spent three years watching him audit other people’s mistakes.”
Ruiz tapped her pen against the folder.
“We recovered deleted browser history from Selina’s laptop.”
“What did she search?”
“How to edit PDF bank statements.”
Nora almost laughed.
“That seems subtle.”
“There were also searches for metadata removal and corporate fraud reporting.”
“That’s her,” I said.
Ruiz did not respond.
“What else?”
“She searched your name a lot.”
“That isn’t surprising.”
“Not publicly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She accessed a paid background service.”
My skin tightened.
“What was she looking for?”
“Property records, prior employers, civil cases, known associates.”
“Why?”
“We’re still working on that.”
Ruiz turned a page.
“She also searched pregnancy symptoms.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“When?”
“Two weeks before the attack.”
Nora’s face went pale.
I heard myself ask, “Mine?”
Ruiz’s eyes met mine.
“The search was phrased, ‘How early can someone tell they are pregnant without being told.’”
My hands became cold.
I thought of the nausea Flynn had seen.
The crackers in my purse.
The prenatal vitamins hidden behind an old bottle of ibuprofen.
The way Selina had looked at my stomach at the foundation dinner.
Not openly.
Just once.
I had dismissed it.
“She knew.”
Nora’s voice sounded far away.
Ruiz held up a hand.
“We don’t know that.”
“She suspected.”
“Possibly.”
I stared at the blanket covering my abdomen.
Selina had accused me of violence.
She had fabricated financial evidence.
She had researched pregnancy.
Then she had walked into my house crying while Flynn held a knife.
My mouth tasted metallic again.
“Did she know Flynn was home?”
Ruiz’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“A text message.”
“From Flynn?”
“No.”
May you like
Ruiz placed a printed screenshot in front of me.
The sender was Flynn’s executive assistant.
