Chương 4
“I am going to ask one thing.”
“What?”
“What do you need from us today?”
Claire looked between them.
The answer came too quickly.
“Don’t take over.”
Daniel’s eyes shifted.
“I mean it.”
“I heard you.”
“I need help, but I can’t go from Evan making every decision to you making every decision.”
His face tightened.
“That’s fair.”
Susan sat beside him.
“We can do that.”
Claire looked at her father.
“Can you?”
“No.”
Susan nudged his shoe with hers.
Daniel exhaled.
“I can try.”
That was enough.
The next morning, Officer Ortega returned.
He was carrying no coffee this time.
He had spoken with Margaret, who confirmed the condition in which Claire arrived and the approximate time.
He had also visited the Mercer residence.
Claire’s body went rigid.
“What did they say?”
Ortega pulled the chair away from the wall.
“Your mother-in-law says you fell during an argument.”
Claire stared at him.
“She hit me.”
“I know what you reported.”
“She hit me with the rolling pin.”
“She denies that.”
“Of course she does.”
“Your father-in-law says he did not see the injury occur.”
“He was in the room.”
“Was he watching?”
Claire stopped.
Raymond had been near the wine cabinet.
Judith had struck quickly.
The first blow landed across Claire’s calf after Claire laughed in disbelief.
The second came as Claire backed toward the island.
By the third, Raymond had turned.
“I don’t know.”
Ortega nodded.
“Your husband says he believed you had bruised your leg and refused his offer to take you to urgent care.”
Claire’s face went cold.
“He said what?”
“He says he encouraged you to get up, and you became angry.”
Claire gripped the blanket.
“He left me on the floor.”
“I’m telling you what he said, not what I believe.”
“He never offered to take me anywhere.”
Ortega waited for her breathing to slow.
Then he continued.
“There’s something else.”
Claire looked at him.
“The rolling pin was gone.”
She said nothing.
“Your mother-in-law says she threw it away because it cracked while she was baking.”
Claire stared at him.
“She picked it up after she broke my leg.”
“When?”
“Before dinner.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
Ortega wrote something down.
Claire heard Evan’s voice in her head.
You’re being dramatic.
A familiar instinct rose in her.
Prove it.
Prove everything.
Make them unable to deny you.
She had built her career around that instinct.
Numbers first.
Documentation second.
Emotion after both.
“What did the kitchen look like?”
Ortega glanced up.
“What do you mean?”
“Was it clean?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“There was some dried liquid near the pantry.”
Claire pictured herself dragging across the floor.
“There should have been blood.”
“From where?”
“My hands.”
She turned them over.
The cuts had been cleaned and dressed.
“I tore them crawling.”
Ortega’s expression changed slightly.
“There wasn’t blood between the kitchen and the pantry.”
Claire felt a strange calm settle over her.
“They cleaned it.”
“That’s possible.”
“No.”
She looked directly at him.
“They cleaned it.”
“Possible isn’t the same as provable.”
Claire nodded.
He was right, and she hated him a little for it.
“Did they let you search?”
“We did not have a warrant to search the entire residence.”
“Then the rolling pin could still be there.”
“It could.”
“Or my phone.”
“It could.”
Claire leaned back.
“Evan will get rid of it.”
“Maybe.”
“He will.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Don’t start investigating your own case.”
The warning irritated her.
“I’m not helpless.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“That’s what everyone keeps treating me like.”
Ortega closed his notebook.
“I’m treating you like someone recovering from major surgery whose husband already knows she talked to police.”
The room became still.
Claire looked away.
He stood.
“You can help by remembering accurately.”
“I remember accurately.”
“Good.”
“Then what?”
“Then let the process move.”
She almost snapped at him.
Instead she pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth and waited.
Ortega paused at the door.
“One more thing.”
Claire looked up.
“When we interviewed your husband, he asked whether any electronics had been taken into evidence.”
Claire’s pulse changed.
“Why?”
“He said he was concerned about company information on shared devices.”
“What shared devices?”
“He didn’t specify.”
Claire sat straighter.
“I don’t use his laptop.”
Ortega nodded.
“Could be nothing.”
But Claire was already somewhere else.
For months, Evan had insisted they keep a small backup drive connected to the computer in the home office.
He said it held tax documents, insurance files, scanned receipts, household records.
Claire had used it once to find an old W-2.
She had also noticed folders with dates.
Dozens of them.
At the time she assumed they were automatic backups.
Now she remembered something else.
A tiny green light beneath Evan’s desk.
Blinking even when the computer was asleep.
“Dad.”
Daniel looked up from the crossword he had been pretending to complete.
“What?”
Claire waited until Ortega had gone.
Then she looked at Susan.
“Did either of you bring my old laptop from Maryland?”
Susan frowned.
“The silver one?”
“Yes.”
“It’s at home.”
“Can someone ship it?”
Daniel put down the newspaper.
“What are you doing?”
“I need access to my personal email.”
“You can use mine.”
“No.”
Claire’s tone came out sharper than she intended.
Daniel’s eyebrows rose.
She softened it.
“I need a device Evan has never touched.”
Susan understood first.
“Do you think he has your passwords?”
“I know he did once.”
“Did you change them?”
“Some.”
Daniel stood.
“Tell me what you need.”
Claire looked toward the closed door.
“I need the laptop sent here.”
“That’s it?”
“And my old phone.”
Susan blinked.
“The one with the cracked screen?”
“If it still turns on.”
“It’s in your desk drawer.”
Daniel reached for his phone.
“I’ll call Mrs. Harper.”
Claire gave him a look.
“You still let the neighbor into our house?”
“She waters the plants when we travel.”
“You kill plants.”
May you like
Susan pointed at Daniel.
“He kills plants.”
