Chương 7
He met us in the lobby, apologetic and defensive in equal measure.
“The thermostat was set low.”
“I saw that.”
“The system itself is fine.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
He looked relieved too quickly.
Maya said nothing.
Inside, she moved slowly from room to room while I carried Liam.
The apartment looked different in daylight.
Not better.
Just more specific.
There were empty spaces where things had been.
A rectangular dust mark on the nursery floor suggested a dresser had once stood there.
Two shelves in the bathroom were bare.
The kitchen cabinets held fewer dishes than Maya remembered.
She opened the hall closet and froze.
“What?”
“My suitcase.”
“What suitcase?”
“The big blue one.”
“Could Mark have taken it to Miami?”
“No.”
She turned toward me.
“He has his own.”
We checked the bedroom closet.
Two of Maya’s dresses were gone, along with a cashmere coat, designer handbag, and several pairs of shoes.
“Chloe,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“Stop saying maybe.”
“Until we know, yes.”
She glared at me.
Then she opened Mark’s dresser.
The top drawer contained socks, receipts, and a pharmacy bag.
The second held T-shirts.
The third stuck halfway open.
Maya pulled harder.
Something behind it shifted.
I set Liam’s carrier on the bed and helped remove the drawer.
A thick envelope had fallen behind the frame.
Maya reached for it.
“Wait.”
She stopped.
I photographed the envelope where it lay.
Then I lifted it by the edges and placed it on the dresser.
My old habits were ridiculous in one sense.
We were not processing a crime scene under warrant.
In another sense, I had already learned what happened when people assumed evidence would remain available.
Maya opened the envelope.
Inside were photocopies of documents bearing her signature.
The first page was an authorization form.
The second was a personal guarantee.
The third mentioned Harbor Point Consulting.
Maya’s breathing became shallow.
“I’ve never seen that name.”
I looked down the page.
Her signature appeared beneath language guaranteeing obligations connected to a business credit line.
The amount listed was seventy-five thousand dollars.
Maya sat on the edge of the bed.
“I signed this?”
“Your signature is on it.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“There are more pages.”
She flipped through them.
Then she stopped.
The final document was different.
It was a notarized authorization granting Mark limited financial power to act on her behalf for specific banking transactions during her postpartum recovery.
Maya looked at the date.
Four days after Liam’s birth.
The day she had said Mark brought papers home.
“I was taking oxycodone,” she whispered.
I took out my phone and called Evelyn.
She answered immediately.
“What now?”
“We found the documents.”
“What documents?”
I read the names and dates.
She became very quiet.
“Photograph everything.”
“Already doing it.”
“Do not remove the originals yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if Mark returns and notices them missing, he may start destroying whatever else exists.”
Maya looked at me.
I understood her before she spoke.
“He’s already coming back.”
“How do you know?” Evelyn asked.
Maya held up her phone.
A new message from Mark filled the screen.
Flight changed.
Landing at six.
We need to talk before your mother makes this worse.
Maya read it aloud.
Then another message arrived.
And Maya, please don’t touch anything in my office.
Maya looked toward the narrow door at the end of the hallway.
Mark had always called it his office, though in reality it was a converted storage room barely wide enough for a desk and two filing cabinets.
I had been inside once when the security system was installed.
At the time, it contained tax folders, printer paper, an old guitar, and three framed photographs of Mark shaking hands with people I did not recognize.
Now the door was closed.
“Did you ever go in there?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Recently?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He kept saying he had client files in there.”
Maya stood carefully.
I caught her elbow.
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
She let me help anyway.
The office door was unlocked.
That surprised me.
So did the room.
The guitar was gone.
So were the framed photographs.
One filing cabinet remained beside the desk, but the other had been replaced by a small fireproof safe bolted to the floor.
Maya stopped in the doorway.
“That wasn’t there.”
“When was the last time you came in?”
“Before Liam was born.”
I took several photographs from the hallway before entering.
Maya gave me an irritated look.
“You’re photographing my husband’s printer.”
“I’m documenting what’s here.”
“You really can’t turn it off.”
“Apparently not.”
The desk was almost empty.
A laptop charger.
Two pens.
A stack of business cards for Harbor Point Consulting.
Maya picked one up.
MARK ELLISON.
Managing Director.
Beneath his name was an address in Center City Philadelphia.
“You said he works for Hammond Pierce,” I said.
“He does.”
“Did.”
She stared at the card.
“I don’t know.”
The listed phone number was Mark’s personal cell.
The website address ended in a domain I had never seen.
I photographed the card.
Maya opened the desk drawer.
Receipts filled the first one.
Restaurant bills.
Parking garages.
A men’s clothing store.
A boutique hotel in Manhattan.
Several had handwritten initials beside the totals.
“Don’t start sorting,” I said.
“I’m looking.”
“Looking turns into moving things.”
“You used to tell me not to touch anything in your kitchen because you had a system.”
“I did have a system.”
“You kept onions next to coffee filters.”
“It made sense to me.”
She almost smiled.
Then she pulled out a receipt dated twelve days after Liam’s birth.
Her expression vanished.
“What?”
She handed it to me.
It was from a jeweler in King of Prussia.
The total was just under nine thousand dollars.
At the bottom, someone had written C.A.
Maya sat down in Mark’s desk chair.
“Chloe Avery.”
“You’re sure?”
“I found her last name two weeks ago.”
May you like
I studied the receipt.
The purchase description had been abbreviated.
