Chương 7
"That's what I heard."
Ortiz nodded.
"Richard confirms that too."
I leaned back.
"Why would he say any of this?"
"People have different breaking points."
"That's not an answer."
"No."
She closed the notebook.
"But it may be the only one you get tonight."
Naomi, who had stayed for the conversation, asked, "What about the financial evidence?"
Ortiz looked at her.
"A separate investigator is processing it."
"Any reason my client should believe additional fraudulent accounts exist?"
"Yes."
Naomi stopped tapping her pen.
"How many?"
"We're not ready to say."
My skin prickled.
Naomi turned to me.
"Tomorrow morning we freeze everything."
"Everything?"
"Credit files, nonessential transfers, passwords we can reach, access to accounts Mason shouldn't control."
"Can he drain our joint account?"
"He can legally access money in an account bearing his name, which is why we're going to move carefully and document everything."
Dad muttered something under his breath.
Naomi ignored him.
"You are not going to log in tonight and start moving money because you're angry."
"I wasn't planning to."
"You were thinking about it."
"I wasn't."
She gave me a look.
I had been.
Around nine, the hospital finally became quiet.
Mom and Dad went to a nearby hotel after I practically ordered them out.
Naomi left after making me promise not to answer Mason if he found a way to contact me.
Ortiz disappeared back into whatever machinery the investigation had become.
Elena dimmed the lights.
For the first time, I was alone.
I expected relief.
Instead, panic arrived.
Every sound in the hallway became Mason's footsteps.
Every shadow beneath the door made my muscles tense.
When my room phone rang at 9:37, I nearly knocked the water cup off the table.
I stared at it through two rings.
Three.
Four.
Then I answered.
"Hello?"
Nobody spoke.
I heard breathing.
Slow.
Close.
My hand tightened around the receiver.
"Mason?"
A man's voice finally said, "No."
I recognized Richard.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then he said, "I'm sorry."
I closed my eyes.
"For which part?"
Richard exhaled so slowly that I could hear the tremor in it.
"The part where I watched."
I said nothing.
"The part where I kept watching."
My throat tightened.
He continued before I could answer.
"I should have stopped her."
"Yes."
"I should have called somebody."
"Yes."
"I should have taken you to the hospital."
"Yes."
Each answer seemed to make him smaller on the other end of the line.
For once, I did not soften anything for him.
He had spent months sitting three rooms away while my life narrowed.
He had watched Mason take my keys.
He had watched Beatrice answer questions directed at me.
He had watched me become quieter at dinner and leave conversations early because it was easier than being corrected.
Maybe he had told himself those things were none of his business.
Maybe that lie had worked until he heard my leg break.
Richard cleared his throat.
"The police took Beatrice."
"I know."
"They asked me about Mason too."
I sat straighter.
"What did you tell them?"
"The truth."
"Which truth?"
He went quiet.
I nearly hung up.
Then he said, "He opened accounts in your name."
My fingers went numb around the receiver.
"You knew?"
"Not at first."
"That isn't an answer."
"I found out in May."
May.
Four months earlier.
"What did you find?"
"A letter from a lender."
His breathing became louder.
"I was looking for one of my insurance statements in the desk downstairs."
"The locked desk?"
"Yes."
"How did you get in?"
"I had a key."
Of course he had a key.
Everyone had access to my life except me.
Richard continued.
"I saw your name on the envelope."
"What kind of loan?"
"I don't know exactly."
"You read it."
"I read enough."
My anger rose so quickly that it pushed the pain medication haze aside.
"How much?"
"Twenty-seven thousand."
The number did not feel real at first.
It sat in my head like a price tag attached to someone else's disaster.
"Twenty-seven thousand dollars?"
"I think that was the balance."
"You think?"
"I didn't understand all of it."
"But you understood my name."
"Yes."
"And you understood Mason had it locked in his desk."
"Yes."
"What did you do?"
Nothing came through the phone.
That silence told me.
"You did nothing."
"I asked him."
The defensiveness in his voice arrived instantly.
I almost laughed.
"You asked him."
"He said you knew."
"And you believed him."
"He said it was for renovations and that you didn't want your parents knowing because they'd interfere."
I stared at the wall.
There was a small scuff near the television mount, a gray crescent against beige paint.
I focused on it because everything else in the room felt unstable.
"Did you ask me?"
"No."
"Did you mention it once?"
"No."
"Did you wonder why I wasn't allowed into that desk?"
He inhaled.
"Hannah."
"Did you?"
"I should have."
I pressed my lips together.
My eyes burned.
"What else?"
"There was another account."
My stomach dropped again.
"What account?"
"A credit line."
"How much?"
"I don't know."
"Richard."
"I don't know."
His voice cracked.
"I saw forty-something on one page, but I don't know whether that was a limit or a balance."
I shut my eyes.
Forty thousand.
Twenty-seven thousand.
Numbers I had never borrowed.
Money I had never seen.
Debt attached to my name while Mason lectured me about buying twelve-dollar shampoo.
"Why are you telling me now?"
"Because they found the papers."
"No."
I gripped the receiver harder.
"Why are you telling me now?"
He stopped breathing for a moment.
Then he said, "Because I was afraid of losing my son."
The answer was ugly enough to sound true.
"And you were willing to lose me instead."
"I didn't think—"
"Exactly."
He went silent.
I could hear a television somewhere behind him.
A commercial voice.
Then music.
Then someone laughing in a studio audience.
Ordinary noise.
May you like
I hated it.
Richard spoke again.
