Chương 8
Looking for someone.
“Mason isn’t here,” she said.
His right hand pulled against the pulse-oxygen sensor.
Grace brought a writing board from the counter. “Can you write?”
Dr. Brooks hesitated, then placed a marker between his fingers.
Adrian’s hand shook so badly that the first line tore across the board. He tried again.
MASON
Grace’s stomach dropped.
Adrian added another word beneath it.
KNOWS
The marker slipped from his fingers.
“Mason knows who did it?” Grace asked.
Adrian’s eyes closed briefly.
“Did Mason do it?”
His eyes opened.
The monitor alarmed as his pulse climbed.
Dr. Brooks removed the board. “That is enough.”
Grace leaned closer. “Is Lily in danger?”
Adrian’s gaze fixed on her.
He moved his head once.
Yes.
Dr. Brooks called for sedation. Adrian fought it, trying to lift his hand again.
“Mason knows,” Grace repeated. “What does he know?”
Adrian’s lips moved uselessly around the ventilator tube. His eyes filled with furious helplessness.
Then the medication entered his IV.
His gaze softened against his will. His hand fell still.
Back in the corridor, Grace told Detective Ortiz what he had written.
“Mason knows,” Ortiz said. “Not Mason did it.”
“He said Lily is in danger.”
“He may believe anyone who saw the intruder is in danger.”
“He was looking for Mason.”
“That could mean several things.”
“You sound like you’re defending him.”
“I’m defending the difference between evidence and fear.”
Grace turned toward the ICU window. Adrian lay beyond the glass beneath clean sheets and machine light.
“I’ve spent years pretending differences like that made me innocent.”
Ortiz waited.
Grace said, “Mason admitted he stole money. Nolan used Adrian’s trucks for drugs. Adrian planned to expose them.”
“Mr. Reed told us part of that.”
“Not about his son.”
The detective’s expression shifted.
“Eli Reed?”
“You know him?”
“We arrested him last year after a hit-and-run. The victim survived.”
“Mason paid the settlement.”
“An insurance company paid it.”
“Mason said he paid.”
“He may have paid something separate.”
Grace looked toward the officer outside Adrian’s room.
“What else has Mason lied about?”
Ortiz did not answer.
Instead, she asked, “Did Mr. Reed say where his son is now?”
“No.”
Ortiz took out her phone and walked away.
The hotel transport was delayed while police searched for Eli Reed.
At five twenty, Nurse Carter arrived in the pediatric room carrying a clear property bag.
“We found this under the chair in Mr. Vale’s room.”
Inside lay a silver compass ring.
Grace stared at it.
The ring’s black center was surrounded by a crescent of polished silver. Dark residue marked one edge.
“Who found it?”
“Environmental services. They stopped cleaning when they saw it and called security.”
“Has Lily seen it?”
“No.”
“Don’t show her.”
Nurse Carter nodded. “Detective Ortiz is downstairs.”
“Why bring it to me?”
“I didn’t. I was told to confirm whether it belonged with Mr. Vale’s personal effects. Then I saw you.”
“You carried evidence out of the room?”
The nurse looked stricken.
“It was sealed.”
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
“I know.”
Grace saw panic building in her.
“Take it to Ortiz. Do not give it to Mason. Do not give it to hospital administration. Hand it to the detective and get a receipt.”
Nurse Carter stared at her. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”
“I sound like someone who has watched powerful men make ordinary people responsible for their mistakes.”
The nurse left.
Lily was coloring at the table. She used a brown crayon for every object, including the sun.
Grace crouched beside her. “Did the man’s ring look like this?”
She drew a circle with a crescent beside it.
Lily looked for less than a second.
“No.”
Grace’s heart stumbled.
“What did it look like?”
Lily took the crayon and drew a narrow silver curve across a dark shape.
Grace pointed. “That is what I drew.”
“No.” Lily added a line through the curve. “Broken.”
“A broken moon?”
Lily nodded.
The compass ring had no line through its crescent.
Grace called Ortiz.
The detective arrived ten minutes later and examined Lily’s drawing without showing her the recovered ring.
“A ring can turn,” Ortiz said. “A seam might look like a line.”
“Or it was different.”
“Yes.”
“Who else wears one?”
“We’re checking.”
“Did the ring have fingerprints?”
“It has not been processed.”
“Where is Nurse Carter?”
“Giving her statement.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“Possibly.”
Lily watched them.
Grace lowered her voice. “The child drew a different ring. Don’t make her fit your evidence.”
Ortiz’s eyes sharpened. “I won’t.”
“Will everyone else?”
“That is why I need you to stop asking her questions too.”
Grace looked at the brown sun.
She had done exactly what she accused others of doing. She had shown Lily a shape and asked for confirmation because she wanted something firm.
“I’m sorry,” she said to her daughter.
Lily kept coloring. “For what?”
“For asking the wrong way.”
“You always ask too many.”
Ortiz’s mouth almost smiled.
Then her phone rang.
She answered, listened, and turned away from Lily.
When she faced Grace again, her expression had closed.
“Eli Reed was found dead this morning in a motel near the airport.”
Mason received the news in a hospital conference room.
Grace did not see him, but she heard the impact from down the hall: a chair striking the wall, followed by silence.
The officers outside the room shifted. One reached for the handle and stopped when Ortiz emerged.
“Accidental overdose is the initial assessment,” she told Grace. “We do not know whether it is connected.”
Grace looked toward the closed door.
Mason had stolen millions to save a son who had still died alone in a motel.
The fact did not make him safe. It made him less predictable.
Adrian’s warning returned to her.
Mason knows.
May you like
A few minutes later, Mason came into the corridor without his attorney.
His face had changed. Not dramatically. There were no tears, no shaking hands. The muscles around his mouth had simply stopped holding their usual shape.
