Chương 2
“No,” Reyes said. “You brought your son into an obstruction investigation.”
Richard’s gaze sharpened. “That accusation is absurd.”
Reyes removed a folded document from inside his jacket. “Richard Cole, you are under arrest pursuant to a federal warrant. You have the right to remain silent.”
Richard looked at Victoria again while Reyes continued.
He did not ask what the charges were. He did not protest that a mistake had been made. He glanced once toward the lower right drawer of his desk.
Victoria noticed.
So did Reyes.
The second agent moved around the desk before Richard could shift his weight.
“Don’t,” Reyes said.
Richard lifted both hands.
The expensive watch slid beneath his cuff.
Ethan’s face had gone pale. The faint red bruise on his right cheek, nearly hidden before, stood out now. He looked younger without the smile. Not innocent, Victoria thought. Younger.
Lily made a small sound when an agent placed Richard’s hands behind his back.
Victoria turned toward her.
“It’s all right.”
The words came automatically, and Lily’s eyes moved to her mother’s face with something that was not belief.
Nothing about the room was all right.
Richard heard the handcuffs close. The sound changed him. His shoulders pulled tight, and a flush rose above his collar.
“My son needs an adult,” he said.
“He has one,” Victoria replied.
Richard’s eyes went to her badge beneath the coat, then to Lily.
“No,” he said softly. “He doesn’t.”
The sentence struck where he intended it to.
Victoria moved toward him before she decided to. Reyes stepped between them without touching her.
“Take Lily outside,” he said.
His tone was quiet. It carried more authority than a shout.
Victoria looked at him. He had been her partner before he became her supervisor, and he knew the exact point where her restraint ended. He also knew she had crossed three lines by coming upstairs.
Lily rose from the chair.
The wooden legs dragged unevenly over the rug. Ethan flinched at the noise.
Victoria went to her daughter. Lily allowed Victoria to put a hand between her shoulder blades, but she did not lean into it. Together they walked past Richard.
At the doorway, Ethan spoke.
“I didn’t mean for her to hit the wall.”
Lily stopped.
Victoria felt the child’s back become rigid beneath her palm.
Ethan stared at the floor. “She grabbed the railing.”
Richard turned his head sharply. “Ethan.”
The boy’s mouth closed.
Reyes looked at Richard. “You should stop helping.”
Richard’s face settled into stillness.
Victoria guided Lily into the hallway.
The law firm occupied the forty-second floor of one of the city’s newest towers. Frosted glass offices lined the corridor, but the floor had been cleared before the arrest team arrived. Richard’s assistants had been told there was a security inspection. The partners had been sent to an emergency luncheon across town. Even Richard’s personal counsel was waiting downstairs, delayed by an elevator someone in building management had taken out of service.
It had taken the task force months to create six clean minutes around Richard Cole.
Victoria had used one of them to threaten an eleven-year-old boy.
At the end of the corridor, Lily sat on a low bench beside a sculpted planter. She touched the bruise near her temple and winced.
“Don’t press it,” Victoria said.
“I know.”
“We need to have it checked again.”
“The nurse checked it.”
“A doctor.”
“I didn’t black out.”
“You said you felt dizzy.”
“Before.”
“Before what?”
Lily looked through the glass wall toward the city. Forty-two floors below, traffic moved between buildings in patient lines. “Before you came.”
Victoria sat beside her. The bench was too shallow, built for visitors who were not meant to become comfortable.
“Why didn’t you tell the school he pushed you?”
“I did.”
“They said you fell.”
“They asked Ethan. He said I tripped.”
“And then?”
“They asked if I was sure.”
Victoria looked down at her own hands. Her nails were short and unpolished. A line of red marked the inside of her palm where the credential wallet had pressed into it.
“What happened in the office before I arrived?”
Lily shrugged.
“Lily.”
“Mr. Cole said people remember things wrong when they’re upset.”
Victoria’s breathing slowed.
“What else?”
“He said Ethan would apologize if I admitted I grabbed him first.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you touch him at all?”
“He took my phone.”
Victoria turned toward her.
“When?”
“Before the stairs.”
“Why?”
Lily looked back toward Richard’s office. “He said I recorded him.”
“Recorded what?”
“I didn’t. I was making a video for science.”
Victoria waited.
Lily’s class had been assigned to document ordinary examples of force and motion. The video on her phone showed a toy car rolling down a ramp near the school’s side entrance. In the background, beyond the glass doors, Ethan stood beside his father. Richard was speaking to a uniformed police commander who served on the academy’s safety board.
Lily had shown Victoria the video in the emergency room because the toy car hit the wall at the end and she wanted to know whether that counted as transferred energy.
Victoria had barely watched the background.
She took out her phone now.
“Where is yours?”
“Ethan threw it.”
“Where?”
“Down the stairs after me.”
“Did the school find it?”
Lily shook her head.
Victoria’s stomach tightened.
“What did the video show?”
“I told you. The car.”
“Behind the car.”
“Mr. Cole gave the police man an envelope.”
The office door opened behind them.
An agent escorted Richard into the hallway.
His hands were cuffed in front now. His face had recovered some of its color. When he saw Lily, he looked at her not with anger but calculation.
Then he saw Victoria’s phone in her hand.
His pace changed.
It was only half a step, but Reyes caught his arm.
“Keep moving.”
Richard looked at Lily. “Children misunderstand adult business.”
Lily’s lower lip trembled. She pressed it flat.
Victoria stood.
May you like
“Daniel,” she said.
Reyes did not look away from Richard. “Not here.”
