Chương 6
“Daniel recorded them.”
“Not then. He confronted Damian the next day. Damian said it was a warranty inspection and told him to mind the work he was paid for.”
“But Daniel kept watching.”
“He found a cut in one brake line and a replacement section prepared to fail under pressure. Not immediately. After enough miles.”
Vincent tasted metal.
“Celeste drove Arya to school every morning.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t Daniel call me?”
Sophia looked at him.
There were answers in her silence that he did not want.
“He tried,” she said. “Your office sent him to Damian.”
Vincent turned away.
The library windows reflected his own face, pale and sharpened by rainlight. Behind the reflection stood Sophia, small and exhausted, waiting for him to blame her because blame was the language they both knew.
“What happened to the line?” he asked.
“Daniel repaired it.”
“Then how did the crash happen?”
“Damian found out.”
Sophia sat on the sofa, though she remained perched at its edge.
“Daniel called Celeste. He told her not to drive the car until he could show her. She said she was coming to the shop. She never arrived. Later that night, Daniel found the Range Rover back at the estate garage. Someone had replaced the repaired section and wiped the fault history.”
“Who had access?”
“Half the staff. Damian. You.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I’m telling you what Daniel said.”
“Did he suspect me?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Sophia.”
“He wondered whether you knew.”
Vincent’s jaw shifted.
“Because I defended Damian.”
“Because Celeste was frightened and you kept calling her unstable.”
The words were quiet.
They cut deeper for it.
Vincent moved toward the fireplace. He picked up the brass clock from the mantel, then put it down without changing the time.
“What was on the rest of the recording?”
“I don’t know.”
“Emma said Daniel’s voice is on it.”
“There were several files. The one she played for me ended after Daniel asked what would happen if you found out. Damian said you would believe what he gave you to believe.”
“Play it.”
“The police said not to touch it.”
“You touched it for months.”
“I made enough bad decisions.”
“One more won’t distinguish you.”
Sophia’s eyes flashed. “You think I don’t know what I did?”
“I have no idea what you know.”
“I know my husband came home shaking. I know he wanted to take us to Canada because he had a cousin in Windsor he hadn’t spoken to in twelve years. I know I told him he was being dramatic. I said men like Damian didn’t kill mechanics. They sued them. They ruined their credit. They made calls.”
Her fingers worked at the loose thread where the cardigan button had been.
“Daniel hid the ledger and recorder. He said if anything happened, I should find the child’s sun. I thought he meant Emma. He called her our sunflower when she was a baby. I tore apart her room. I cut open the mattress. I dug under the porch at my mother’s house. I never thought of Arya’s rock.”
“Why would Daniel choose it?”
“He saw Arya paint it. He did repair work near the garden that summer. He said nobody moved anything that belonged to a dead child.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
“That was before she died,” Sophia added. “He hid the ledger after the crash.”
“How long after?”
“Three weeks.”
“And Daniel died when?”
“Eleven weeks later.”
The official story returned in fragments. A mechanic named Daniel Carter had driven his pickup off a county road after midnight. Alcohol in his blood. No seat belt. The report called it a single-vehicle accident.
Vincent had sent flowers.
Damian had arranged the payment for funeral expenses.
“What made you believe Damian caused it?” Vincent asked.
“Daniel didn’t drink.”
“The report said he did.”
“The report said Celeste wanted to kill your daughter.”
Vincent looked at her.
Neither apologized.
Sophia continued. “The night Daniel died, he called me from the shop. He said Damian knew about the recording. He told me to take Emma and go to my mother’s. I asked how Damian knew.”
Her hand stopped moving.
“He said I told him.”
Vincent waited.
“I had gone to Damian that afternoon,” she said. “I begged him to leave Daniel alone. I said Daniel was at the shop copying records and that he would give them back if Damian forgave the debt.”
“What debt?”
“The compressor loan. Medical bills from Emma’s birth. Shop rent. Damian had bought them through another company. I thought I was bargaining.”
“You gave him Daniel’s location.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
Vincent sat across from her.
For the first time since the garden, Sophia looked directly at him without fear.
“I gave him my husband,” she said.
The library door opened before Vincent could answer.
Captain Nora Velez entered without removing her raincoat. She was in her early fifties, compact, dark-haired, and carrying two evidence cases. A younger detective and a technician followed. Leon remained in the hall with Emma.
Velez looked at Vincent, then Sophia, then the objects arranged on the desk.
“Nobody speaks for the next five minutes,” she said. “Nobody touches anything. Mr. Moretti, I need the names of every person who handled each item. Mrs. Carter, I need you not to clean your hands. There may be transfer material from the recorder or cup.”
Sophia looked down at the mud beneath her nails.
Velez took out her phone and began dictating the time, location, weather conditions, and names present. The technician photographed the desk from several angles. He placed paper evidence markers beside the recorder, key, cashbox, ledger, cup fragments, photograph, and Damian’s abandoned water glass.
“Why the glass?” Vincent asked.
Velez gave him a flat look.
“You made it four minutes.”
He stopped talking.
May you like
The examination took nearly an hour.
Emma ate one piece of burned cinnamon toast in the breakfast room and fell asleep beneath the table with her head against Leon’s shoe. Mrs. Alvarez covered her with a dish towel before Leon found a proper blanket.
