Chương 4
“That I should protect you.”
His face twisted.
“I’m asking you not to make it worse.”
“For whom?”
“For all of us.”
“There is no all of us.”
He looked toward Ruiz.
“This is private.”
Ruiz said, “Sir, nothing about this situation is private anymore.”
Daniel’s eyes closed briefly.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Emily, I know what I did was insane.”
I said nothing.
“I got scared.”
Still nothing.
“I thought if Mom reported fraud, the bank would reverse it.”
“And me?”
“I wasn’t trying to get you arrested.”
“You called the police.”
“I thought they’d ask questions, check your account, see there was nothing there, and then it would go back to the bank as fraud.”
I stared at him.
“You thought the police would inconvenience me just enough to make your lie believable.”
He opened his hands.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said.”
He flinched.
I did not feel victorious.
That surprised me.
For weeks I had imagined confronting him and watching some clean truth break free.
There was nothing clean about seeing him cornered.
He was still the man who had sat beside me on the bathroom floor during my miscarriage because I could not stand being alone in the bedroom.
He was still the man who had taught my niece to ride a bicycle.
He was still the man who had lied to me about debt, tried to use his mother’s account, and brought police into our home.
None of those facts canceled the others.
That was the unbearable part.
Daniel looked down at his hands.
“I can fix the money.”
“With what?”
“I have some.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“Cash.”
“How much?”
“A little over four.”
“Four thousand?”
He nodded.
My stomach tightened again.
“Where did that come from?”
He did not answer.
I stepped closer.
“Daniel.”
Ruiz straightened.
Daniel looked at him, then at me.
“I sold some things.”
“What things?”
“My watch.”
“That watch is worth six hundred dollars on a good day.”
“And some electronics.”
“What electronics?”
He rubbed his mouth.
I suddenly pictured the locked cabinet in his home office.
The camera equipment he claimed belonged to a coworker.
The laptop I had never seen him use.
The new phone still sealed in a box.
A slow, ugly suspicion opened inside me.
“Those weren’t yours.”
Daniel’s silence told me enough.
Ruiz said, “Mr. Carter, I strongly recommend you stop talking until Sergeant Hale comes back.”
Daniel laughed weakly.
“That sounds bad.”
“It’s not intended to sound good.”
Daniel turned toward the window.
A delivery van rolled slowly past our house.
The driver craned his neck at the patrol cars.
Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Delaney, was pretending to water the same patch of hydrangeas she had been watering for ten minutes.
Daniel saw her.
“Great.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“The whole neighborhood is watching.”
“You were worried about that when you called?”
“I didn’t think they’d send two cars.”
I stared at him.
He seemed genuinely offended by the number of vehicles.
The ridiculousness of it cracked something in me.
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because if I did not laugh, I was going to scream.
Daniel stared at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What is funny?”
“Mrs. Delaney.”
He glanced outside.
“She’s always been nosy.”
“That’s what you’re worried about.”
“No.”
“It’s one of the things.”
He gave me an irritated look, and for half a second we were back in some ordinary argument about recycling or his mother’s Christmas plans.
Then Hale returned.
The ordinary world vanished again.
He stood in the doorway holding his notebook against his thigh.
“Mr. Carter, I need you to hear me carefully.”
Daniel straightened.
Hale’s tone had changed.
Not harsher.
More formal.
“Based on what your mother has told me, along with your statements here, I have enough concern to continue this as a criminal investigation.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Concern isn’t proof.”
“No.”
Hale nodded.
“It isn’t.”
That answer seemed to unsettle him more than an argument would have.
Hale continued.
“I’m not going to arrest you simply because everyone in this kitchen is angry and the situation looks bad.”
Daniel exhaled.
“But I am going to preserve the credit union records, including teller video, identification records, withdrawal documentation, and any authorization used.”
Daniel’s relief disappeared.
“I also need to know whether the cash is still in your possession.”
Daniel looked toward me.
Hale said, “Answer me, not your wife.”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-two hundred.”
Patricia appeared behind Hale.
Her face crumpled.
“You spent eight hundred already?”
Daniel turned.
“Mom, I was trying to multiply it.”
Nobody spoke.
Hale’s brows drew together.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel swallowed.
“I placed another bet.”
Patricia sat down hard in the nearest chair.
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not desperation used to stop gambling.
Gambling used to rescue gambling.
The shape of the thing became visible all at once.
Every borrowed dollar had probably entered Daniel’s mind already wearing a larger number.
Three thousand was not money to him.
It was a chance to become ten.
Ten was a chance to become twenty.
The debt was not a hole he was trying to fill.
It was a table he believed he could beat.
Hale said, “Where is the remaining twenty-two hundred?”
“In my office.”
Ruiz spoke.
“Cash?”
“Yes.”
“Where in the office?”
“In the bottom desk drawer.”
Hale looked at Ruiz.
“Would you secure the room and make sure nobody enters it for now?”
Daniel stiffened.
“You can’t search my house.”
“Correct.”
Hale did not blink.
“I didn’t say we were searching it.”
Ruiz moved toward the hallway.
Daniel started after him.
Hale stepped into his path.
“Stay here.”
“It’s my office.”
“And nobody is going into it.”
Daniel’s face reddened.
I watched him calculate whether anger would help.
For once, he abandoned it.
Hale turned to me.
“Mrs. Carter, do you own this residence jointly?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“Do you consent to officers entering the office solely to secure the room while we determine next steps?”
