Chương 10
Adrian sighed.
“Are you waiting for me to absolve you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I’m still pissed.”
The answer startled Vincent.
Adrian’s voice remained weak but dry.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Decide guilt is a form of accountability.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You feel terrible, so now everybody has to comfort you until you can believe feeling terrible counts as fixing something.”
Vincent stood.
“I’m not asking you to comfort me.”
“You’re sitting there looking like somebody shot your dog.”
“You were poisoned by the man I sent to you.”
“Marcus poisoned me.”
“I gave him access.”
“So did I.”
“You warned me.”
“I warned you because I had suspicions. I didn’t know he was going to kill me.”
Vincent looked toward the door.
Adrian watched him.
“You want to know the worst part?”
“No.”
“I liked him.”
Vincent turned.
Adrian’s eyes had gone wet, though his voice did not change.
“I liked Marcus. I trusted him. I kept finding reasons the numbers could be wrong because the other explanation was that the guy who brought Mom soup after surgery was stealing from us.”
Vincent sat again.
Adrian looked at the blanket.
“He remembered my birthday.”
Vincent said nothing.
“He sent me that ridiculous smoker last year.”
“You never used it.”
“I used it once.”
“The brisket was terrible.”
“It was.”
Adrian wiped beneath one eye with the side of his hand, irritated by the moisture.
“I hate that I miss him.”
Vincent looked down.
“So do I.”
That was the first true thing they said about Marcus that no police report would ever hold.
The criminal case grew slowly.
Much slower than the news cycle.
Forensic testing confirmed the same toxic substance in both the decanter from Vincent’s table and Adrian’s blood.
Investigators found residue in a small travel vial recovered from Marcus’s apartment.
The missing decanter remained missing.
Prosecutors did not need it as desperately once additional evidence accumulated, but Brooks did.
She disliked gaps.
The restaurant’s service records showed that Marcus had requested access to the private dining room twenty minutes before Adrian arrived.
Security footage showed him carrying a leather document case into the service corridor.
It did not show what happened inside liquor storage because there was no camera there.
The bartender confirmed that Marcus handed him the decanter used for Vincent’s drink.
A server remembered Marcus removing another decanter after Adrian complained of a “weird” taste.
The server had assumed he was helping.
Nobody had stopped him because Marcus had been coming to Bellamy House for years.
Familiarity had functioned like a key.
Then investigators found the financial motive.
Four shell companies.
Over six million dollars.
Falsified approvals.
Transfers routed through an investment account controlled by a corporation tied to Marcus’s cousin.
Marcus’s defense attorney called the evidence circumstantial.
In many places, it was.
The photograph mattered because it fixed Marcus to a particular object at a particular time.
Emily mattered because she had seen what happened around that photograph.
But the prosecution did not build the case around a child.
Brooks was firm about that.
“She is not your miracle witness,” she told the assistant district attorney.
Rachel heard about the conversation later.
She was grateful.
Still, Emily’s name leaked.
Children at school found the videos.
One Monday morning, a boy in third grade asked whether she knew how to detect poison.
Emily said no.
He asked whether she could tell if his juice was poisoned.
She said, “Probably not.”
By lunch, three children were asking her to inspect their drinks.
A teacher intervened.
That evening Emily threw her pink bows into the bathroom trash.
Rachel found them while brushing her teeth.
She carried them to Emily’s room.
“Why are these in the garbage?”
“I don’t want them.”
“You love these.”
“Not anymore.”
Rachel sat on the bed.
Emily stared at her workbook.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
Rachel waited.
Emily erased the same math answer until the paper thinned.
Finally she said, “Maya said I’m famous.”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“And?”
“She said her mom saw me online.”
Rachel looked at the bows in her hand.
One had a bent clip.
“Do you want different bows?”
“I don’t want any.”
“That’s okay.”
Emily’s pencil stopped.
“Mr. Marcus is bad because I took the picture.”
“No.”
“He got arrested after I showed it.”
“That doesn’t mean you caused what he did.”
“I know.”
Rachel watched her.
Emily did not look convinced.
“Do you?”
Emily’s shoulders rose.
“Everybody keeps saying I saved Mr. Vincent.”
“You probably did.”
“So if I didn’t take the picture, maybe Mr. Marcus wouldn’t get caught.”
“That might be true.”
Emily looked up.
Rachel continued carefully.
“But he is responsible for the thing he chose to do before you ever lifted the camera.”
Emily’s mouth tightened.
“What if he hates me?”
Rachel almost said he doesn’t matter.
That would have been dishonest.
People who hated you could matter enormously.
“He might.”
Emily’s eyes widened.
Rachel touched her hand.
“And that is scary.”
“Mom.”
“I’m not going to tell you something fake because you’re eight.”
Emily looked toward the window.
Rachel continued.
“The police know where he is. He cannot come near you. We are careful. We tell the truth. And we keep living our life.”
“What if he gets out?”
“Then we deal with what is real when it is real.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
Rachel pulled her close.
This time Emily cried.
Not loudly.
She pressed her face against Rachel’s shoulder and shook in small, furious breaths.
“I want my camera back.”
Rachel held her.
“I know.”
“I want everything back.”
“I know.”
That was the harder request.
Detective Brooks returned the camera three weeks later.
She did it herself.
Rachel opened the apartment door and found Brooks holding a paper evidence envelope.
Emily appeared from the hallway.
Her face changed instantly.
“My camera.”
Brooks held up one finger.
“Paperwork first.”
Emily groaned.
Rachel smiled.
“That sounds fair.”
May you like
“No, it sounds like police.”
Brooks laughed.
