Chương 3
His face changed.
“Do you need an ambulance?”
Claire looked through the glass doors at the waiting cars outside.
Her knees began trembling.
“I need the police.”
Marcus reached for the phone before she finished the sentence.
By eleven twenty-three, Claire was sitting in an emergency room with adhesive monitors against her abdomen while a nurse named Elena tried to find a comfortable position for her.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room in quick, steady pulses.
Claire stared at the machine.
She had never heard anything so beautiful or so terrifying.
A physician examined the burn and told her it appeared superficial but needed treatment.
Nobody promised more than they could know.
They monitored the baby.
They checked Claire’s blood pressure twice because the first number made the nurse frown.
A Denver police detective named Melissa Ortiz arrived shortly before midnight.
She did not tell Claire everything would be fine.
Claire liked her for that immediately.
Ortiz asked questions slowly and twice returned to the order of events.
“Your husband restrained both wrists?”
“Yes.”
“Could he see what his father was doing?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell his father to stop?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
Claire looked at the dark television screen mounted on the wall.
“No.”
Ortiz wrote something down.
“Were there cameras inside the residence?”
“Yes.”
Claire swallowed.
“I asked security to preserve the recording.”
Ortiz looked up.
“That was smart.”
Claire nearly laughed because she did not feel smart.
She felt like a woman sitting in a hospital gown on New Year’s Eve because her husband had helped his father burn her.
Fireworks began somewhere beyond the hospital windows.
A few seconds later, distant bursts of color reflected against the glass.
Claire’s phone vibrated on the tray beside the bed.
Her attorney’s name appeared on the screen.
Claire had called Naomi Feld from the lobby because Naomi had handled the purchase of the penthouse years earlier and later helped Claire structure several investments.
The message contained only three lines.
Do not contact Ryan.
Do not move any money tonight.
I found transfers from one of your accounts that I don’t recognize.
Claire read the message twice.
Then a third time.
Detective Ortiz noticed her face.
“Something happen?”
Claire looked at the fireworks reflected in the black hospital window.
Ryan’s fear at the elevator returned with sudden clarity.
He had not been afraid of losing his wife.
He had been afraid she would start looking.
He had been afraid she would start looking.
Claire turned the phone facedown on the hospital tray, but the words remained fixed behind her eyes.
Detective Ortiz waited without pressing her.
“My attorney found transfers,” Claire said.
“From your account?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Ortiz closed her notebook halfway.
“Is your husband authorized to access your finances?”
Claire opened her mouth and then stopped.
The answer should have been simple.
Ryan had a household card, access to the account they used for groceries and shared expenses, and login information for one joint checking account.
He was not supposed to have access to her brokerage accounts, business equity, or the investment account Naomi had helped her establish before the marriage.
“I need to check.”
“Not tonight if you’re not up to it.”
Claire looked at the fetal monitor.
The heartbeat continued at its relentless little pace.
“I’m up to it.”
Her fingers felt clumsy as she reopened Naomi’s message.
She typed, Which account?
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
The Meridian account ending 4417.
Claire’s stomach tightened for a reason that had nothing to do with the burn.
That account contained proceeds from stock she had sold two years earlier.
She had barely touched it because the money was meant to remain liquid until she decided whether to buy a second property or increase her stake in a private fund.
Ryan knew the account existed.
He did not know the password.
At least Claire had believed he did not.
How much?
Naomi called instead of answering.
Claire looked at Ortiz.
“My attorney.”
“Take it.”
Claire answered.
Naomi did not bother with a greeting.
“Are you alone?”
“A detective is here.”
There was a pause.
“Good.”
Naomi’s voice usually sounded measured even when discussing ugly things.
Tonight it had a hard edge.
“I pulled the records because you once gave me view-only access during the tax dispute last spring.”
Claire remembered signing the authorization.
“Naomi, how much?”
“Just under four hundred and eighty thousand dollars over eleven months.”
Claire heard the number but could not attach meaning to it.
The hospital room seemed to shrink.
“What?”
“The transfers are irregular.”
“Where did they go?”
“Some went to an LLC called Front Range Development Partners.”
Claire looked at the ceiling.
Grant.
Even before Naomi said anything else, Claire knew.
Grant had spent years forming companies with names that sounded large enough to hide how small his operations actually were.
“What else?”
“Several transfers went through a payment service and then disappeared into accounts I can’t identify from what I have.”
Claire pressed her thumb against the side of the phone.
“How did he get access?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you freeze it?”
“I already contacted the bank’s fraud department to flag the account, but they’ll need to speak to you directly.”
Claire shut her eyes.
“You said don’t move any money.”
“Because I don’t want you accidentally creating a mess in the record before we know what happened.”
Naomi exhaled.
“And Claire, there’s something stranger.”
Claire almost said she had reached her capacity for stranger.
Instead she waited.
“Two of the transfers were initiated from a device the bank recognized as yours.”
“My phone?”
“I can’t tell from the records I have.”
Claire looked at the phone in her hand.
Ryan knew her passcode.
He had watched her enter it a thousand times.
He sometimes used her phone to change music in the car or order food when his battery died.
The ordinary intimacy of that knowledge made her nauseated.
May you like
“Could Ryan have done it?”
“I’m not saying that.”
