Chương 7
“Can Lily stay here?”
“The hospital cannot keep a healthy child indefinitely.”
Grace looked through the glass again.
“Adrian is not her family,” Ortiz said.
“I know.”
“You are allowed to leave.”
Grace laughed softly. “You said my apartment isn’t safe.”
“I said you are allowed to leave the life that made it unsafe.”
The words landed harder than Ortiz intended. The detective’s expression showed that she knew it.
Grace turned away.
Adrian’s life had not felt like her life. She cleaned his counters, ordered pantry supplies, removed cigar ash from curtains, and carried envelopes between rooms without opening them. She took a paycheck and went home. She told herself proximity was not participation.
But Adrian owned her building. His men knew Lily’s preschool. His enemies knew her name.
There had been no clean border. Only one Grace had preferred not to see.
At noon, Mason arrived with his attorney and submitted to another interview. Nolan remained missing. Peter Lyle and Vincent Marr surrendered their phones. Joel Carrigan was stopped at the airport before boarding a flight to Montreal.
Rumors reached the news by early afternoon. A local website reported that “businessman Adrian Vale” had suffered complications after surgery. Another identified the hospital. Television vans appeared across the street.
The protected floor became louder despite everyone speaking more quietly.
Mason found Grace near the pediatric vending machines. One officer stood ten feet away.
“You’re going to a hotel,” he said.
“Detective Ortiz told you?”
“I saw the transport request.”
“You are reading police requests now?”
“I am reading hospital security traffic.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“It often is.”
He offered her a paper cup of coffee.
She did not take it.
“Nolan’s gone,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Did he contaminate the wound?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Do you know why he ran?”
Mason looked toward the vending machine. One package of pretzels hung crookedly behind the glass.
“He may believe Adrian will survive.”
“That sounds like a reason to run if he hurt him.”
“It also sounds like a reason to run if Adrian intended to expose him.”
“Which is it?”
Mason rubbed his thumb over the seam of the coffee cup.
“I asked Nolan to move money.”
Grace felt her stomach tighten.
“How much?”
“The first three million.”
“You said you took it.”
“I signed the transfer. He created the invoices.”
“And the rest?”
“He continued after I told him to stop.”
“Why did you need three million dollars?”
Mason’s gaze moved to the officer, then back.
“My son has been in treatment for opioid addiction for six years. He owes people who do not send invoices.”
Grace had not known Mason had a son.
“I paid debts,” he said. “Rehabilitation. Lawyers. A settlement after he hit a pedestrian while driving. I kept telling myself I was buying him one more chance to become someone else.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
The answer held no self-pity. That made it worse.
“Adrian found out,” Grace said.
“Yes.”
“What was he going to do?”
“Nothing to Eli. Adrian does not harm children to punish their parents.”
“You say that like it clears him.”
“It does not.”
“What was he going to do to you?”
“Remove me. Turn over records. Let the law finish what he began.”
“And Nolan?”
“Nolan had built a distribution network using our trucks. Adrian told him to close it. Nolan refused.”
“So both of you needed Adrian silent.”
“Yes.”
“You keep admitting motive.”
“Motive is not evidence.”
“It is when you’re standing outside a three-year-old’s room trying to shape what her mother believes.”
Mason’s fingers tightened around the cup. The lid bent and coffee spilled over his knuckles.
He looked down as if surprised by it.
Grace smelled cedar.
Lily had said the man smelled like trees.
Mason wiped his hand with a napkin. A thin crescent scar curved beside his right thumbnail.
Grace stepped back.
He followed her gaze.
“This?”
He raised his hand. “A bottle broke in Adrian’s kitchen two years ago.”
Grace remembered the incident. She had found blood on the white tile and a shattered bourbon bottle in the trash. Mason had told her not to mention it.
Lily had said shiny, not scar.
Still, Grace’s pulse accelerated.
Mason lowered his hand. “I did not touch Adrian’s wound.”
“Your scar looks like a moon.”
“So does every thumbnail when a child is frightened.”
He discarded the cup.
“Here is what I need you to understand. If Nolan did this, he will try to make it look like me. He has my access codes, my security procedures, and one of the compass rings.”
“You gave him all of that.”
“Yes.”
“And if you did it, blaming Nolan is exactly what you would say.”
“Yes.”
Grace hated the steadiness of his answers.
He turned to leave.
She said, “Why did Adrian trust you?”
Mason stopped beside the vending machine.
“He didn’t,” he said. “Not at the end.”
Adrian opened his eyes shortly after three in the afternoon.
Dr. Brooks allowed Grace into the intensive-care room because Adrian became agitated when he heard unfamiliar voices. Mason was excluded pending the police investigation. A uniformed officer stood outside.
The cold daylight had turned blue. The cardiac monitor’s green waveforms moved steadily, though the numbers above them rose whenever Adrian tried to breathe over the ventilator. Tubing crossed his chest. The abdominal dressing was larger now, clean and tightly secured.
Grace stood near the foot of the bed.
“Mr. Vale.”
His eyes moved slowly toward her.
He looked smaller without his suits, his polished shoes, or the people who arranged themselves around him. The strong pale face was swollen. Dark stubble covered his jaw. His hand twitched against the blanket.
“You’re in the hospital,” Grace said. “You had another operation.”
His brow tightened.
“The first surgery was yesterday. Someone tampered with the wound afterward.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Lily noticed.”
The monitor quickened.
May you like
Dr. Brooks stepped closer. “Mr. Vale, do not fight the ventilator.”
Adrian’s gaze moved past Grace.
