Chương 5
His coat folded across his lap.
His phone hidden beneath it.
I closed my eyes.
Something about the image was wrong.
Not wrong then.
Wrong now.
“His cane,” I said.
Luca blinked.
“What?”
“Graham’s cane.”
Mara turned.
I could see the calculation beginning.
I spoke faster.
“Silver handle, dark wood, front row.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t use a cane.”
Luca stared at me.
“He had knee surgery.”
“Four years ago.”
“He still uses one sometimes.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he made fun of my father for using trekking poles in Vermont last summer and spent twenty minutes bragging that his surgeon gave him the knees of a forty-year-old.”
Luca went quiet.
I could see the memory settle into place for him too.
Mara was already speaking into her radio.
“Locate Graham Sterling.”
Static.
Then another voice.
“Stand by.”
The wait lasted perhaps six seconds.
It felt longer.
“Sterling is not in the chapel.”
Mara opened the door fully.
“Lock the building down.”
Luca moved after her.
I caught his sleeve.
He turned.
For the first time since he sat up in the coffin, neither of us seemed interested in arguing.
“The cane,” I said.
His eyes met mine.
The fear in them was unmistakable now.
“It was hollow,” he said.
I released his sleeve.
“What was inside it?”
Luca looked toward the corridor where officers had begun running.
“A hardware key that can decrypt everything they stole.”
Mara stopped so abruptly that the young officer behind her nearly walked into her back.
“Who knew the key existed?”
Luca looked at her.
“Six people.”
“Names.”
“Me, Victor, Graham, Celeste, my mother, and Adrian Kessler in engineering.”
I said, “Seven.”
Luca turned.
“You told me.”
His face went still.
“No.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“Not what it was.”
I folded my arms tighter because I could feel my hands beginning to shake again.
“Three months ago, when you came home after midnight and said your uncle had turned a product meeting into a spy movie.”
Luca stared at me.
“You said Graham kept joking that the company had reached the point where its most expensive secrets could fit inside something smaller than a house key.”
Mara watched both of us.
“That’s not the same as knowing about the hardware key.”
“No, but it means he was talking about restricted access outside secure meetings.”
Luca rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“He talks too much when he drinks.”
“Then the list is larger than six.”
Mara’s radio crackled again.
“Agent Keene, we have Sterling on exterior camera.”
“Direction?”
“West side.”
“Alone?”
“Appears so.”
“Show me.”
She took the phone another agent held out.
The security image was grainy but clear enough.
Graham was moving quickly along the side of the chapel toward the cemetery road.
The cane was gone.
Luca leaned closer.
“Where is it?”
Mara enlarged the frame.
Nothing in either hand.
“You said he had it in the front row?”
I nodded.
“I saw it.”
Mara spoke into the radio.
“Search the chapel immediately for the cane.”
Another voice answered.
“Already doing it.”
Luca looked toward the door.
“I need my phone.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“No.”
“He could be heading to the service gate.”
“Which is why armed agents are heading there instead of a man who was sedated twenty minutes ago.”
“I’m fine.”
“You almost fell into a priest’s desk.”
“That desk was badly placed.”
I looked at him.
He looked back.
Despite everything, a small involuntary sound escaped me.
Not quite laughter.
It offended me that he could still do that.
His mouth twitched.
“Please don’t encourage him,” Mara said.
Then the radio came alive.
“Cane located.”
All three of us turned toward the sound.
“Where?”
“Under the second pew, north aisle.”
“Do not touch it.”
“Copy.”
Mara was out the door before the reply finished.
Luca followed.
I followed Luca.
No one tried to stop me this time.
The chapel looked worse than it had ten minutes earlier.
Half the guests had been moved into the fellowship hall.
The remaining relatives stood in little confused clusters under police supervision.
The coffin was still open.
Seeing it empty produced a nausea more violent than seeing Luca inside it.
I looked away.
The cane lay beneath a pew where an officer had placed two yellow evidence markers on either side of it.
The silver handle caught the overhead light.
Mara crouched without touching it.
“Was it like this before?”
I leaned closer.
Something was wrong at the lower end.
A narrow seam had opened in the dark wood.
“No.”
Luca saw it too.
“The base cap is missing.”
Mara stood.
“Meaning?”
“The compartment was accessed.”
“Could the key still be inside?”
“Maybe.”
She called for the evidence technician.
Aunt Marianne suddenly pushed past an officer.
“What is happening?”
Her mascara had begun to gather in gray half-moons beneath her eyes.
She pointed at Luca.
“And why is he walking around?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
“That is a reasonable question,” I said.
Luca gave me a look.
Marianne heard me.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Then what in God’s name is this?”
“Not the best day to demand coherent explanations.”
She stared at me as if I had personally rearranged reality.
Then her attention went to the cane.
“That belongs to Graham.”
“Yes,” Mara said.
Marianne’s face changed.
“He left it?”
“Did you see him with it?”
“At the beginning.”
“When exactly?”
“He was sitting with it.”
“Did anyone approach him?”
Marianne looked around.
“I don’t know.”
Mara stepped closer.
“Try.”
The command irritated her.
Good.
I had learned years ago that irritation often shook loose details politeness could not.
Marianne pressed a hand against her temple.
“Celeste spoke to him.”
Luca and I exchanged a glance.
“When?”
“Before Wendy started all that.”
“All what?”
Marianne looked at me, embarrassed now.
“The accusations.”
“At what point did Celeste speak to Graham?”
“She leaned over the pew.”
“What did she say?”
“I couldn’t hear.”
May you like
“Did she touch the cane?”
“I wasn’t watching their hands.”
