Chương 11
Him saying the client liked sailing.
Then another detail.
"He didn't wear his wedding ring."
Mara looked at me.
Benton's eyes sharpened.
"Why?"
"He said he'd taken it off at the gym and forgot to put it back on."
"Did that happen often?"
"No."
Benton wrote something.
"Anything else?"
"He came home after midnight."
"Drunk?"
"No."
"Upset?"
I closed my eyes.
The front door opening.
Leo moving quietly.
The smell of cold air and something floral.
Not perfume exactly.
A hotel soap smell.
"He showered."
"What time?"
"Maybe twelve thirty."
"Did he normally shower at night?"
"No."
Benton's pen stopped.
Mara stared at me.
"Was he having an affair?"
"I don't know."
The answer tasted different from all the others.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Benton closed the folder.
"We've identified another recurring payment from the hidden accounts."
My chest tightened.
"To who?"
"Not who."
She looked at me.
"A hotel."
For a few seconds I heard nothing except the soft pneumatic hiss from the hospital bed.
"What hotel?"
Benton named a place near the airport.
I knew it.
Not well.
Leo and I had stayed there once when a snowstorm canceled a flight home from Denver and the airline put us up overnight.
It had beige hallways and aggressively cheerful carpet.
"How often?"
"Nine payments over six months."
Mara sat back.
"Nine."
I looked at Benton.
"Before January?"
"Yes."
"How far before?"
"The first one we found was in November."
That should have hurt more than it did.
Instead, I felt almost relieved.
An affair was ordinary.
People survived affairs.
People bought books about them.
They sat across from therapists and argued over definitions.
There were podcasts.
There were support groups.
There were no support groups called My Husband May Have Slowly Disabled Me While Leveraging Our House.
"Do you know who was with him?"
"We're working on that."
"Then why tell me?"
"Because the payments connect to the hidden financial activity."
"How?"
"One of the hotel charges was followed by a cash withdrawal from the same account used for other concealed spending."
"Cash for what?"
"We don't know yet."
Mara gave Benton a hard look.
"You keep saying that."
"Because investigations would be much easier if people wrote honest labels on everything."
I almost smiled.
Benton continued.
"The hotel also appears in phone location records associated with a device registered to Leo."
"You have his phone?"
"Law enforcement obtained it."
"Did he give it to you?"
"No."
That answer held enough meaning without explanation.
I looked down at the transaction date.
"Was he there January twenty-third?"
Benton paused.
"We're checking."
My stomach tightened.
"The night the prepaid card was bought."
"Yes."
"Could the store be near the hotel?"
"About four miles."
Mara leaned forward.
"So he buys the card, goes to the hotel, orders the chemical under Judith's name, and then starts poisoning her."
Benton's expression hardened slightly.
"That sequence has not been established."
"It's pretty damn close."
"Close is not the same as proven."
Mara threw up both hands.
"This entire week is apparently sponsored by the word proven."
"Mara."
"No, I'm serious."
She stood and began pacing the narrow strip between the window and my bed.
"He poisons her, forges her signature, hides debt, maybe cheats on her, and everybody is still using words like possibly."
"Because those words matter," Benton said.
"To him."
"To your sister too."
Mara stopped.
Benton's voice stayed calm.
"If investigators decide too early what happened, they start interpreting every fact in one direction."
Mara's jaw tightened.
"And if they're wrong?"
"Then the wrong person gets charged, the case collapses, or both."
I watched my sister absorb that.
She hated it.
So did I.
But she sat down.
"Fine."
Benton closed the folder.
"I'd like permission to speak with your employer."
I looked at her.
"Why?"
"To establish your work schedule, income records, and whether there were financial or behavioral changes noticed by anyone else."
My first instinct was no.
It rose quickly and fiercely.
My job was still mine.
Leo had contaminated my home, my body, my money, my marriage.
I did not want him reaching into work too.
"What would you tell them?"
"As little as necessary."
"Necessary according to who?"
"According to the investigation."
I looked away.
My supervisor, Glenn, was a decent man who communicated mostly through spreadsheets and thumbs-up emojis.
He knew I had been missing deadlines.
He knew I had taken three sick days in March and two in April.
He knew I had once fallen asleep during a team call with my microphone on.
Leo had laughed when I told him.
Maybe Glenn had not.
"What if this costs me my job?"
Benton's expression changed.
"Then we document that consequence too."
"That doesn't pay my mortgage."
"No."
I hated that she did not offer false comfort.
I hated that I trusted her more because of it.
"You can talk to Glenn."
"Last name?"
"Mercer."
"Thank you."
"Don't tell him about the poisoning if you don't have to."
After Benton left, I stared at the closed door.
Mara waited.
"You think Leo was seeing someone?"
"Yes."
"You didn't even hesitate."
"You asked what I think."
I rubbed my thumb against the side of my index finger.
It was a nervous habit I had developed in college and mostly stopped after graduation.
Now the skin there was already tender.
"Was I that stupid?"
Mara's head turned sharply.
"No."
"I thought he was at client dinners."
"People have client dinners."
"He stopped wearing his ring sometimes."
"People take rings off."
"He showered at midnight."
"People shower."
"He changed passwords."
Her expression shifted.
"You knew that?"
"He said work security required it."
"Okay, that's suspicious."
I laughed despite myself.
"Thank you."
"I'm not going to insult you by pretending nothing was."
"I should have known."
"Maybe."
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
"You said not to tell you how to feel."
"You're enjoying that rule."
"A little."
A hospital aide came in with fresh linens.
May you like
She apologized for interrupting.
Mara moved aside.
