Chương 5
David capped the pen.
“It may be.”
“You haven’t even opened it.”
“Exactly.”
Adrian shook his head.
“This is theater.”
Raymond turned toward him.
“You locked a room after your wife’s mother found evidence of a possible financial crime.”
“I locked my own front door.”
“After threatening her.”
“I didn’t threaten anyone.”
Claire stared at him.
“You told Margaret accidents happen.”
Adrian looked at his sister with genuine surprise.
“You’re taking her side?”
Claire folded her arms.
“I’m taking the side where people don’t threaten seventy-one-year-old women in locked dining rooms.”
Celeste stood.
“Enough.”
Her voice still had authority in it, but the room no longer obeyed automatically.
She picked up her handbag.
“This family will not tear itself apart in front of strangers.”
Nolan touched his bleeding lip with the napkin.
“You mean more than it already has?”
“Don’t be childish.”
“He shoved me into a table.”
“You provoked him.”
Nolan stared at her.
For a moment, the anger vanished from his face.
Something quieter replaced it.
“You always say that.”
Celeste frowned.
“Say what?”
“That somebody made him do it.”
Adrian stepped toward him.
The sergeant moved between them.
“That’s enough movement for everybody.”
Adrian lifted both hands.
“Fine.”
The sergeant turned to him.
“Mr. Westbrook, I need to speak with you separately.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not at this moment.”
“Then I want them out of my house.”
The sergeant glanced toward the broken lamp and the dining-room door.
“Your wife also lives here.”
“She just said she’s leaving.”
“That does not erase her residency.”
Adrian’s mouth tightened.
He looked toward the porch.
Emily was sitting in a wicker chair now.
The patrol officer had brought her a bottle of water.
I had seen dozens of defendants look at witnesses that way.
Not with rage.
With calculation.
They were assessing damage.
I walked outside.
Emily looked up.
“Where’s the drive?”
“With David.”
She nodded.
“That’s better.”
“You sound like him.”
“He explained chain of custody to me once.”
“When?”
She looked away.
“Last month.”
I sat beside her.
The porch chair was too low, and my knees protested immediately.
Emily noticed.
“You hate these chairs.”
“I hate decorative furniture pretending to be useful.”
A tiny smile appeared at one corner of her mouth.
It disappeared just as quickly.
The officer stepped away to give us privacy.
Cars moved along the street beyond the hedge.
Somebody across the road was dragging trash bins toward a garage.
Sunday evening continued with insulting normality.
“Why did you talk to David last month?” I asked.
Emily twisted the bottle cap.
“I called the trust office.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know who else to ask.”
“You could have called me.”
“I know.”
That hurt more than I expected.
I tried not to let it show.
Emily saw it anyway.
“I almost did.”
“What stopped you?”
“You.”
I looked at her.
She rubbed at the label on the water bottle.
“You have a way of fixing things.”
“I thought that was generally considered useful.”
“Not when you’re the thing being fixed.”
I leaned back carefully.
The wicker creaked beneath me.
Emily kept peeling the label.
“I knew if I told you Adrian was moving money around, you’d start making calls.”
“Yes.”
“And if I told you about us, you’d come over.”
“Yes.”
“And then it would become a case.”
The word sat between us.
A case.
Not a marriage.
Not her life.
Not a frightened woman waking beside someone she no longer trusted.
A case.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked at me quickly.
I had apologized to juries, judges, colleagues, and once to a bailiff after accidentally locking him in an evidence room for forty minutes.
Apologizing to my daughter had always been harder.
“For what?”
“For making you believe I would take over.”
“You would have.”
“Yes.”
That surprised a laugh out of her.
It lasted only a second, but it was real.
Then her eyes filled again.
“I didn’t know how to leave.”
“You don’t have to solve that tonight.”
“Sophie.”
There it was.
Her daughter’s name.
The question beneath every other question.
“Where is she?”
“With Adrian’s father.”
My stomach tightened.
“Since when?”
“This morning.”
“Why?”
“Robert takes her most Sundays.”
“Does he know what happened?”
“No.”
“Does he know about your arm?”
“I told him I fell.”
I looked toward the house.
Adrian was visible through the front window, speaking to the sergeant.
“Did Adrian threaten to keep Sophie from you before Thursday?”
Emily nodded.
“Not exactly like that.”
“What did he say?”
“That judges don’t like unstable mothers.”
I waited.
“He kept screenshots.”
“Of what?”
“Arguments.”
“What kind of arguments?”
“My texts.”
She gave me a tired look.
“Yes, Mom, some of them are ugly.”
“I didn’t ask whether they were pretty.”
“I called him a bastard.”
“I’ve prosecuted people for worse.”
“I told him I wished I’d never married him.”
“That is not a crime either.”
“I threw a coffee mug once.”
“At him?”
“At the sink.”
“Did it break?”
“Yes.”
“Was Sophie there?”
“No.”
Emily looked toward the lawn.
“He took pictures.”
Of course he had.
The mess after the argument.
Not the hour before it.
Not the words that led there.
Not the quiet humiliations.
Just the broken mug.
A clean little image of a woman losing control.
“He told me he’d prove I was unstable.”
“Has he ever taken Sophie somewhere without telling you?”
“No.”
“Has he ever harmed her?”
Emily answered immediately.
“No.”
I believed the speed of that answer.
Then she added, “He loves her.”
The pain in her voice was almost defensive.
I did not challenge it.
People could love their children and still use them terribly.
The front door opened.
The sergeant stepped onto the porch.
“Mrs. Westbrook?”
Emily stood.
I did too, more slowly.
He looked at her sling.
“Based on what you’ve told us and what we observed inside, we have enough to continue investigating this as a domestic assault.”
May you like
Emily’s face went blank.
That was common when official language arrived.
