Chương 10
Claire answered.
“He left.”
Diane stared toward the foyer.
“He left me here?”
“Yes.”
For the first time that day, Claire almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Diane looked at Martinez.
“Am I being arrested?”
Martinez stepped aside with Bell.
“We need to speak with you privately.”
“I already spoke with her.”
He nodded toward Bell.
“There are additional questions.”
Diane’s eyes flicked toward the trash bin.
Claire saw the instant she understood the transfer notice had been recovered.
Her shoulders dropped.
“Can I call my son?”
“You can make a call.”
Diane reached into her purse, then stopped when Martinez raised his hand.
“That purse is going to stay where it is for now.”
She stared at him.
“My phone is inside.”
Bell said, “I can retrieve it for you.”
Diane nodded weakly.
Bell removed the phone without disturbing the other contents.
Diane took it.
Her hands shook as she called Ryan.
The phone rang long enough for everyone to hear it.
No answer.
Diane tried again.
Still nothing.
She lowered the phone.
Claire watched the realization settle in.
Ryan had not only left.
He was choosing not to answer his mother.
Diane whispered, “He’ll call back.”
Nobody responded.
Martinez guided her toward the dining room again.
Before leaving, Diane turned to Margaret.
“I never meant for today to happen.”
Margaret looked at her.
“No.”
Her voice was flat.
“You meant for all the days before it to happen.”
Diane’s eyes filled.
She went with Martinez.
Claire looked at Margaret.
There was no triumph in her face.
Only fatigue.
Elena stood.
“We should get moving.”
Margaret looked toward the hallway.
“Can I change my cardigan first?”
Claire frowned.
“Why?”
“This one has coffee on the sleeve.”
Claire looked down.
A small brown smear marked the beige knit near Margaret’s cuff.
She had not noticed it.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Claire nodded.
“I’ll get another one.”
Margaret started to stand.
“No.”
Elena placed a hand lightly on her shoulder.
“Let your daughter.”
Margaret gave her an irritated look but stayed seated.
Claire walked toward the hallway.
At the threshold, she looked back at the kitchen.
Daniel stood beside the sink.
Elena remained with Margaret.
Bell waited near the island.
The documents lay scattered exactly where Claire had first emptied the purse.
For a moment, it looked less like evidence than the remains of a badly planned afternoon.
Claire went to Margaret’s bedroom.
The room smelled faintly of lavender and furniture polish.
A cardigan hung over the back of the chair near the window.
Claire took it.
Then she noticed the sewing basket beside the dresser.
Margaret had said the notebook was there.
Claire crouched.
The basket contained thread, scissors, buttons, a half-finished hem, and beneath them a small spiral notebook.
She did not open it.
She carried both items back.
Margaret saw the notebook first.
“Good.”
Claire handed it to her.
Margaret turned it over in her hands.
The cover was blue with a faded grocery-store logo.
Daniel stared at it.
“That’s your secret record?”
“I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.”
Margaret opened the first page.
Her handwriting was small and neat.
Dates ran down the left side.
Beside them were amounts, missing objects, names, questions.
Claire saw her own name more than once.
April 11, Claire says I probably moved checkbook.
April 18, Diane says pills were already gone when she arrived.
May 2, Ryan says I canceled dentist.
May 4, dentist office says cancellation came from Ryan’s number.
Claire’s breath caught.
“Mom.”
Margaret turned another page.
“I called afterward.”
“You never told me.”
“I was collecting things.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“Jesus.”
Margaret frowned.
“I wish you would stop saying that.”
He nodded.
“Sorry.”
Claire read another line.
June 9, Diane entered house while I was at church.
Neighbor saw gray car.
Claire looked at her.
“You knew she had been coming in?”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you change the locks?”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“Because every time I tried to do something, I wondered whether I was overreacting.”
Claire sat beside her.
That sentence hurt more than the affair.
More than the money.
More than the forged signature.
“They made you afraid of your own judgment.”
Margaret looked at the notebook.
“Yes.”
Elena stood quietly nearby, giving them a moment.
Margaret turned several pages.
Then stopped.
Her finger rested on an entry from three months earlier.
July 17, Ryan at Fairmont side entrance with woman in green dress.
Claire stared at the date.
She knew where she had been that day.
Her phone had pictures from it.
She had spent the afternoon at a pediatric dental appointment with Ryan’s niece because Diane said she had a migraine and Ryan claimed he was meeting a commercial client.
Claire looked up.
“Green dress.”
Margaret nodded.
“She was wearing green.”
Claire’s mind returned to a photograph she had seen two weeks later on Ryan’s phone.
A group dinner.
Four contractors.
Two women.
One wore green.
Claire had asked who she was.
Ryan had said she handled bookkeeping for Evan.
Claire stood.
Her pulse accelerated.
“What was her hair like?”
Margaret frowned.
“Dark.”
“Straight?”
“Yes.”
“Short?”
“Not very.”
“To her shoulders?”
“About that.”
Claire reached for her phone.
Her fingers shook as she searched old messages.
She found the photograph.
Ryan had sent it after she accused him jokingly of inventing business dinners to avoid her mother’s meatloaf.
Wish you were here, he had written.
Claire enlarged the image.
The woman in green stood near the end of the table.
Her hand rested on the back of Ryan’s chair.
Claire held the phone toward Margaret.
“Is that her?”
Margaret took her glasses from the chain and put them on.
She studied the image.
Her expression changed.
“That’s her.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“Who is she?”
Claire stared at the woman’s face.
She had met her twice.
Once at Ryan’s company Christmas party.
Once at a charity golf event.
Ryan had introduced her both times.
“Vanessa Cole.”
May you like
The name tasted strange.
Daniel looked at Claire.
