Chương 5
Her toothbrush was missing.
She stood in front of the drawer where it should have been.
It was a small thing. Cheap. Replaceable. Yet the empty slot upset her more than the missing money. Mason had removed the most ordinary proof that she lived there.
“Are you okay?” Ramirez asked from the doorway.
“No.”
The officer nodded.
Elena opened the next drawer.
Behind a stack of towels, she found a clear plastic bag containing six pregnancy tests. All unused.
She stared at them.
Lydia had begun mentioning grandchildren at Christmas. Mason had scheduled an appointment with a fertility specialist without asking Elena. When she refused to attend, he accused her of humiliating him.
The tests did not belong to Elena.
She lifted the bag by one corner.
“What is that?” Ramirez asked.
“I don’t know.”
From the bedroom, Lydia said, “Those are private.”
Elena turned.
“Whose?”
Lydia’s composure tightened.
“Mason bought them. He hoped you might reconsider.”
“All six?”
“He plans ahead.”
Elena placed the bag back in the drawer. The explanation was possible, which made it more disturbing rather than less.
In her office, the computer was gone.
The desk remained. The hard drive was gone. Two shelves of architecture books had been cleared. A pale rectangle marked the place where her father’s framed sketch of Grand Central Terminal used to hang.
Elena faced Oliver.
“Where is my computer?”
“I don’t know.”
“You helped him with the loan.”
“I witnessed a signature.”
“Mine?”
He swallowed.
Hale stepped forward. “Mr. Cross is not here to answer questions.”
“I asked Oliver.”
Oliver looked at Officer Ramirez, then at his attorney, then at Elena.
“Mason said you signed electronically.”
“Did you see me do it?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“He said you were upstairs.”
“So you witnessed something you did not witness.”
Oliver rubbed the side of his neck.
“He said it was a formality.”
Lydia’s voice sharpened. “Enough.”
The word changed him. His shoulders drew inward as if he were still twelve.
Elena saw it and understood something she had not understood before. Oliver was not silent because he believed Mason. He was silent because Cross family peace depended on whoever surrendered first.
Usually, that person had been Elena.
She walked behind the desk and opened the shallow center drawer.
It stuck halfway.
For months, Mason had promised to fix it. Elena had stopped asking. She braced one hand against the desk and pulled harder.
The drawer came free with a dry wooden snap.
Taped underneath was a small silver flash drive.
Her breath stopped.
She had hidden it there five months earlier after copying business records from Mason’s laptop. She had almost forgotten it. That evening, Mason came home early, and Elena spent dinner convinced he knew what she had done. The next morning, she told herself she was being dramatic.
She closed her fingers around the drive before anyone else could see.
Ramirez saw.
The officer’s eyes met hers, then moved away.
Elena slipped the drive into the inner pocket of her purse.
On the way out, Priya stood in the hallway near the elevators.
She wore flat shoes and a gray work dress, nothing like the dark green silk she had worn at the party. Her face looked bare and younger without makeup.
Lydia stiffened.
“What are you doing here?”
Priya held out a garment bag. “Elena left her coat.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Priya’s fingers tightened around the hanger.
The elevator doors opened.
Officer Bell stepped inside with Elena’s suitcases. Ramirez followed.
Priya looked toward the apartment, where Lydia and Oliver stood close enough to hear.
“Take the coat,” she said.
Elena accepted the bag.
Inside the elevator, she unzipped it.
Her black winter coat hung neatly inside despite the August heat. In the pocket was a folded paper napkin.
On it, Priya had written a phone number and four words.
I recorded the bottle.
Elena did not call immediately.
She carried the coat to the hotel, set it across the bed, and stared at the napkin for nearly an hour. Vivian sat in the armchair reading through the fraudulent loan documents. She asked no questions.
Finally, Elena said, “Priya has a recording.”
Vivian looked up.
“She says she recorded the bottle.”
“Video?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call her.”
Elena felt the old resistance rise.
Vivian lowered the papers. “That sounded like an order.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology was awkward and immediate. It did not fix anything, but it changed the room by a fraction.
Elena dialed.
Priya answered on the first ring and whispered, “Are you alone?”
“My mother is here.”
A pause.
“Can she leave?”
Vivian stood before Elena asked. She took the loan documents into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
Elena listened to the silence on the line.
“Priya?”
“I have eleven seconds,” Priya said. “I started recording when Lydia said you were being ungrateful. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I wanted proof that she talks like that when nobody else is around.”
“Does it show Mason?”
“It shows his arm and your hand. Then the bottle comes down.”
“Why didn’t you give it to the police?”
Another pause.
Priya worked as communications director for the Cross Foundation. Lydia had hired her six years earlier after Priya’s previous employer closed. The foundation paid her salary, her health insurance, and part of the tuition for a graduate program she attended at night.
“I panicked,” she said. “Lydia asked everyone to leave their phones on the counter before the officers separated us. I had mine in my bag. Oliver saw me put it there.”
“Did he see the video?”
“No. I uploaded it to a private folder before the police came.”
“Then give it to them.”
Priya’s breathing changed.
“I have a meeting with Lydia tomorrow morning.”
“About what?”
“She says the foundation is restructuring.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Priya, she’s threatening your job.”
“She didn’t say that.”
May you like
“She didn’t need to.”
“I have loans. My father’s medication is on my insurance. I can’t just become brave because you need me to.”
