Chương 5
“You should have told me.”
“I thought if you knew, you’d refuse to stay away.”
“You were correct.”
“That was the problem.”
“That was not your decision to make.”
“I know that now.”
I looked at him.
“No, you know the plan worked.”
He did not answer.
Ruiz placed another document on the table.
“This came two nights ago.”
It was a transcript.
I recognized Margaret’s name beside one line and Victor’s beside another.
Margaret: If he wakes up, everything collapses.
Victor: He won’t.
Margaret: You said that about the car.
I looked up.
“Where did this come from?”
“A cooperating witness.”
“Who?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“That person is still under protection.”
“Was the conversation recorded legally?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not answering what I asked.”
“I’m answering what I can.”
The investigator in me respected that.
The wife in me wanted to throw the water bottle at her.
I returned to the table.
“What was supposed to happen to Daniel?”
Ruiz said, “We believe Margaret and Victor arranged for him to receive an overdose of a prescription sedative after a company dinner.”
Daniel lifted his sleeve.
A small adhesive patch covered the inside of his elbow.
“The person they hired changed sides.”
“Why?”
Ruiz said, “Money, fear, conscience, probably in that order.”
“Who hired them?”
“Victor made contact.”
“And Margaret?”
“Approved payment.”
My chest felt tight.
“Then why the funeral?”
Daniel answered.
“Because we needed them to act as if the problem was solved.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you were in the coffin.”
“The recording equipment.”
I stared at him.
He looked embarrassed.
“We needed to capture statements after they believed I was permanently gone.”
“You could have hidden microphones without becoming a centerpiece.”
“Yes.”
“So why?”
Ruiz looked at him.
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
“Because I insisted.”
I laughed without humor.
“Of course you did.”
“I thought Margaret might say more if she was standing next to me.”
“Next to your corpse.”
“Yes.”
“And did she?”
Ruiz closed the folder.
“She did.”
I looked at the ceiling.
Somewhere upstairs, a vacuum cleaner started.
The sound was absurdly domestic.
“What exactly did she confess?”
“Not enough to convict her by itself,” Ruiz said.
“But enough to support the warrants already in motion.”
“Warrants for what?”
“Her residence, Victor’s office, two storage units, and the corporate archive.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“There’s something else.”
I looked at him.
His expression had changed.
The guilt was still there, but another fear had appeared beneath it.
“What?”
“Someone accessed our home office yesterday.”
My stomach dropped.
“I was home yesterday.”
“That’s why I’m telling you now.”
“You’re telling me now because apparently today is the day I learn every terrible thing in alphabetical order.”
“Claire.”
“What was taken?”
He looked at Ruiz.
She answered.
“A backup drive.”
I stared at her.
“What was on it?”
Daniel said, “Copies of the Altera records.”
I felt the room go still again.
Then another detail surfaced.
Yesterday afternoon, I had gone upstairs to change after Margaret’s attorney left.
The home office door had been open.
I always closed it because the hinge squeaked when the air conditioning turned on.
I had assumed grief had made me careless.
“What time?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“I left the house for forty minutes at two.”
Daniel frowned.
“Where did you go?”
“To the florist.”
“Did anyone know?”
“Margaret did.”
Ruiz’s eyes sharpened.
“How?”
“She called at one thirty to complain about the arrangement around the coffin.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
I could almost see him blaming himself for information he had not possessed.
Ruiz stood.
“I need the exact time of that call.”
“My phone is upstairs in my purse.”
“I’ll get an officer.”
I shook my head.
“I’ll go.”
Daniel stood too.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
He stopped.
I picked up the folded threat and placed it in front of him.
“For the next ten minutes, you can experience what it feels like when someone who claims to love you makes a decision for you.”
He flinched.
I hated how satisfying that was.
Then I climbed the stairs alone.
The chapel was nearly empty.
An officer stood near the coffin.
The flowers had been put upright again, though one arrangement leaned awkwardly to the left.
My purse was beneath the front pew.
I bent to retrieve it and heard a phone vibrate.
Not mine.
The sound came from inside the coffin.
The officer heard it too.
We looked at each other.
He stepped forward.
“Don’t touch anything.”
I did not.
He leaned over the satin lining and found a small black phone wedged beneath the interior cushion.
It was not Daniel’s.
The screen lit again.
One new message appeared.
DON’T LET CLAIRE LEAVE THE BUILDING.
The officer’s hand froze above the phone.
I stared at the message until the words separated into shapes that no longer looked like English.
“Who sent that?”
He did not answer me.
Instead he touched the radio clipped to his shoulder.
“Ruiz, I need you upstairs now.”
Static answered first.
Then her voice.
“On my way.”
I looked toward the chapel doors.
Two uniformed officers stood there now, one facing inward and one facing the parking lot.
The reporters had been pushed outside, but their voices leaked through every time someone opened a door.
The officer beside me used a gloved hand to lift the phone from the coffin lining.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
He glanced at me.
“You’d be surprised.”
Ruiz came through the side aisle with Daniel behind her.
I turned on him immediately.
“I told you to stay downstairs.”
“You were gone longer than ten minutes.”
“It has been maybe four.”
“It felt longer.”
“That is not how time works.”
Under other circumstances, he would have smiled.
He did not.
Ruiz held out her hand.
The officer gave her the phone without touching the screen.
“Found under the lining.”
May you like
Ruiz read the message.
Her expression changed so little that most people would have missed it.
