Chương 13
He ended the call and returned.
“An officer will follow.”
Daniel said, “Does she know?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“Ethan, I need to ask whether there is anywhere else she might go.”
I searched through our life.
Her sister's condo.
Our lake house.
Her mother's assisted-living facility.
The gym.
Mason's apartment.
The attorney.
Then one place struck me.
My office.
Not the company headquarters.
My private office at home had copies of estate documents and the sale agreement.
But police were already securing the house.
There was another location.
A safe-deposit box.
Olivia and I had opened it years ago for original trust papers, jewelry, and old family documents.
She had access.
I tried to say it.
“Box.”
Ortiz leaned closer.
“Box?”
Once.
“Safe?”
Once.
“At the house?”
Twice.
“Bank?”
Once.
Daniel looked at me.
“You have a safe-deposit box?”
Once.
“Which bank?”
That was harder.
I forced two syllables.
“Mer.”
Daniel frowned.
“Mercer?”
Once.
Ortiz said, “Mercer Federal?”
Once.
He wrote it down.
“Joint access with Olivia?”
Once.
“Anything relevant to your estate there?”
Once.
“Original documents?”
Once.
Kline said, “If she is beneficiary under a trust, physical possession of documents may not change the legal effect.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“But destruction or substitution could matter.”
“Yes.”
Daniel said, “And if she's panicking, she may not know what matters.”
Ortiz nodded.
He made another call.
This one was shorter.
When he finished, he said, “The bank is closed.”
Daniel looked at the wall clock.
“Then she can't get in.”
“Probably not tonight.”
“Finally, a locked door helps us.”
My eyes were still closed, but darkness no longer felt like the coffin.
It felt temporary.
A prison with weakening bars.
I tried to lift my eyelids.
Pain tightened around them.
Then light entered.
Only a thin red-gray line at first.
Rachel gasped softly.
“Ethan?”
I tried again.
My right eyelid opened a fraction.
The room appeared as a blur of white and dark shapes.
Daniel came into focus first because he was leaning too close, as usual.
His face looked terrible.
Red eyes.
Unshaven jaw.
A stain on his shirt.
He smiled anyway.
“Hey.”
The word nearly broke me.
I opened both eyes a little farther.
Rachel shone a light near them.
“Pupils responsive.”
I blinked badly.
The motion was uneven but mine.
Dr. Patel came to the other side.
“Can you see me?”
I moved once.
His face swam into focus.
He looked older than he had that morning.
Perhaps we all did.
“You're making progress.”
I looked past him toward Ortiz.
The detective held my phone.
Mason's message was still open.
I could not read all of it from the bed.
I did not need to.
I looked at Ortiz and forced my lips to move.
“Olivia.”
The name emerged rough and broken.
Ortiz nodded.
“What about her?”
I swallowed.
My throat burned.
“Not alone.”
Daniel said, “Mason?”
I shook my head a fraction.
Everyone went quiet.
I did not know why I was so certain until the next memory surfaced.
The funeral.
Before Olivia and Mason spoke beside my coffin, someone else had been in the room.
A chair had moved.
A door had closed.
I had assumed it was Denise leaving.
But after Denise left, I had heard another sound before Mason entered.
A soft electronic chime.
The same two-note notification Olivia's estate attorney used during video calls.
I had heard it dozens of times during the company sale.
Then Mason had said they only needed a few more hours.
Not she.
They.
I dragged air into my lungs.
Ortiz leaned closer.
“There is someone else?”
I moved once.
Daniel whispered, “Who?”
My tongue felt thick, useless, but the name finally formed.
“Lawyer.”
Ortiz's eyes narrowed.
“Which lawyer?”
I swallowed again.
“Estate.”
Kline looked toward Karen.
Daniel said, “Name.”
My mouth resisted the shape of it.
“Grant.”
“Grant who?” Ortiz asked.
“Ellis.”
Daniel went still.
“I know that name.”
Of course he did.
Grant Ellis had handled the restructuring of my trust the previous year and then stayed on to advise Olivia during the pending company sale because, as she put it, he was good at translating my financial nonsense into human language.
Ortiz asked, “Was Ellis at the funeral?”
I moved once.
“Did you hear him speaking with Olivia and Mason?”
Twice.
Not exactly.
“Did you hear evidence that made you believe he was involved?”
Once.
I forced another word.
“Call.”
Daniel frowned.
“The notification?”
Once.
I managed, “Video.”
Ortiz understood.
“You heard a video-call alert?”
Once.
“Before Mason entered?”
Once.
“From Olivia's phone?”
I hesitated.
I had assumed that.
I could not know it.
Twice.
Ortiz nodded, appreciating the correction.
“Good.”
Daniel sighed.
“There is that word again.”
Ortiz ignored him and stepped into the hall.
By the time he returned, I could open my eyes fully for several seconds at a time.
The room looked painfully ordinary.
Gray floor.
White walls.
A clock above the sink.
A plastic cup on the counter.
Nothing about it matched the scale of what had happened to me.
Ortiz said officers were locating Ellis and preserving his communications if they could establish lawful grounds.
He also said the residence had been secured.
Olivia had not reached it first.
That mattered more than anything else he told me.
They found the mug on the balcony.
Still there.
Cold coffee dried in the bottom.
They found the silver supplement packets beside the coffee grinder.
They found three opened ones in the kitchen trash.
They found the rest in a cabinet behind tea she knew I never drank.
Nobody called any of it proof.
Not yet.
The next several hours became a strange mixture of recovery and waiting.
My left hand began responding around nine that night.
Speech returned in broken pieces.
By midnight I could manage short sentences.
Every word felt borrowed.
May you like
Daniel stayed until a nurse threatened to remove him for repeatedly asking whether I could have solid food.
At some point he disappeared and returned with a bag of pretzels.
