Chương 6
“What’s on the recording?”
Ethan stared at the sealed evidence envelope in the officer’s hand.
“Claire meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“I never saw the whole file.”
“You said there was video.”
“There is.”
“Then how do you know what it shows?”
“Because Claire called me after she recorded it.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“What did she say?”
Ethan’s face tightened.
“She said she finally knew why someone wanted her dead.”
Sophie made a small sound.
Daniel’s anger disappeared instantly.
He turned and knelt in front of her.
“Hey.”
Her eyes were wide.
“Mommy knew?”
Daniel cursed himself silently.
He had let the conversation go too far with her in the room.
He touched her cheek.
“We don’t know what happened yet.”
“But he said—”
“I know.”
“Was Mommy scared?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
Ethan answered quietly from behind him.
“Yes.”
Daniel turned, furious.
Ethan lifted both hands.
“She deserves truth too.”
“She deserves to be six.”
Ethan looked away.
Daniel faced Sophie again.
“Sweetheart, there are things the grown-ups have to figure out.”
“You always say that.”
The accusation was soft.
It hurt anyway.
Daniel sat back on his heels.
“When?”
“When Mommy died.”
He swallowed.
Sophie rubbed one wrist.
“You said grown-ups were figuring it out.”
Daniel looked at the marks Vanessa had left.
For nearly two years, he had confused protecting Sophie with keeping uncertainty away from her.
Apparently uncertainty had found its own doors.
Before he could answer, shouting rose from downstairs.
An officer yelled, “Stop.”
Footsteps pounded across the lower floor.
Daniel stood.
The officer near the wardrobe reached for his radio.
“What’s happening?”
Static answered first.
Then a voice came sharply through the speaker.
“Female subject attempted to exit through the rear of the residence.”
Daniel stared toward the bedroom door.
The radio crackled again.
“She’s detained.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Daniel looked at Sophie.
Her face had gone pale.
Then the officer’s radio sounded a third time.
“We found a phone on her.”
The officer pressed his shoulder microphone.
“So?”
A pause followed.
The answer came quieter.
“It’s receiving a live video feed from the hidden room upstairs.”
The officer holding the evidence envelope looked toward the open wardrobe as if the hidden room had changed shape while nobody was watching.
Ethan’s bruised face hardened.
“Where’s the camera?”
The officer raised a hand.
“Don’t move.”
“I was locked in there.”
“And right now we don’t know who did what.”
Ethan sank back against the unfinished plaster, breathing carefully through what the paramedic suspected were bruised ribs.
Daniel moved Sophie behind him again.
The gesture had become automatic.
He hated that.
The officer stepped closer to the wardrobe and aimed his flashlight into the narrow room.
There was hardly enough space for a person to lie down comfortably.
An old folding chair leaned against one wall.
A plastic water bottle lay crushed near Ethan’s feet.
A small vent had been cut close to the ceiling.
The beam climbed over pipes, exposed framing, and a strip of newer drywall that looked different from the rest.
“Camera could be anywhere,” Ethan said.
The officer ignored him.
His radio crackled.
“Upstairs unit, secure the scene and don’t touch anything else.”
A second voice added, “Detectives are en route.”
Daniel looked at Sophie.
She had begun rubbing the hem of her pajama top between two fingers.
Claire used to do the same thing with napkins when she was nervous.
The resemblance arrived without warning and made his chest ache.
“Can we go downstairs now?” he asked the paramedic.
The woman nodded.
“I’d prefer to get her into the ambulance.”
Sophie immediately said, “No.”
Daniel crouched.
“We need somebody to look at your wrists properly.”
“They looked.”
“At the hospital.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“I’m coming.”
She studied his face as if verifying the terms of a contract.
“And the card?”
“The police have it.”
“Vanessa can’t take it?”
“No.”
Sophie glanced at the officer.
He understood what she was asking.
“She can’t take it,” he said.
Only then did Sophie let Daniel guide her toward the door.
Ethan called after him.
“Daniel.”
Daniel stopped.
Ethan looked at Sophie, reconsidered whatever he had intended to say, and changed it.
“Don’t let anybody tell you the card is corrupted until you see that for yourself.”
The officer beside him said, “That’s enough.”
Daniel gave Ethan a long look.
Then he walked Sophie into the hallway.
The house had never seemed particularly large until it filled with police.
A uniformed woman stood near the stairs.
Another officer photographed the hall.
Someone downstairs spoke in clipped bursts over a radio.
Blue light pulsed through the front windows and washed the cream walls in intermittent color.
Sophie stopped halfway down the stairs.
Vanessa sat on a dining chair near the kitchen with her hands cuffed behind her.
An officer stood beside her.
Vanessa looked up.
“Sophie.”
The child recoiled so hard Daniel nearly lost hold of her hand.
Vanessa’s face changed.
“Sophie, I’m sorry.”
The officer beside her said, “Ma’am.”
“I just want to tell her—”
“No.”
Daniel continued down.
Vanessa twisted toward him.
“Daniel, please.”
He did not stop.
“You need to hear me before they take me anywhere.”
Daniel kept walking.
“Claire was already involved in something before I ever knew about that room.”
He stopped then.
He hated himself for stopping.
Sophie pressed against his leg.
Daniel turned slowly.
Vanessa looked exhausted now.
Without the perfect posture and deliberate calm, she seemed older.
A strand of dark hair had fallen across her cheek.
“What something?” Daniel asked.
The officer beside her interrupted.
“Sir, don’t engage.”
Vanessa spoke over him.
“She was moving money.”
Daniel stared at her.
“I know about the inheritance.”
Vanessa blinked.
That surprised her.
“Ethan told you.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t know all of it.”
The officer stepped between them.
“Conversation’s over.”
Vanessa leaned sideways to keep Daniel in sight.
“Ask him who paid his company.”
Daniel’s attention sharpened.
May you like
“What?”
The officer placed a hand on the back of Vanessa’s chair.
