Chương 4
Camille did not go with him.
Denise asked her twice.
Camille shook her head both times.
Richard stood with his driver’s door open.
“Get in,” he said.
Camille looked down at the lemonade stain on her dress.
“No.”
His face hardened. “We’re not doing this here.”
“You already did it here.”
“Camille.”
“She asked what you took.”
“I didn’t take anything.”
“You went into that room because of something I said in our kitchen after three glasses of wine. You went back eleven times.”
“You knew I was coming here.”
“I knew about today.”
Richard glanced toward Valeria, embarrassed now that his marriage had become evidence.
“You’re confused,” he said to Camille.
Camille laughed once, without humor.
“No. I think I’ve been confused for a while. This feels different.”
He drove away alone.
The family van followed. Denise leaned toward the window as they passed Camille, her mouth moving around words no one outside could hear.
The patrol car left last.
By six o’clock, the patio held abandoned cups, a tray of overcooked chicken, and the smell of charcoal. The late sun turned the windows gold. Owen and Leah changed out of their uniform jackets in the downstairs guest room, then returned in white shirts with their sleeves rolled.
Valeria remained in full dress uniform.
She could not make herself remove it.
Richard’s words had been stupid, but stupidity did not keep them from landing. Take off that uniform. As though she had dressed that morning to deceive him. As though twenty-eight years of discipline, schooling, deployments, ceremonies, and funerals were an accessory he could order her to discard on a patio he had entered by fraud.
Owen came outside carrying three trash bags.
“You’re cleaning?” Valeria asked.
“I’m preventing myself from offering unhelpful opinions.”
Leah carried plates toward the kitchen. “He has many.”
“I have four,” Owen said. “Three would create paperwork.”
Martin sat at the patio table with his laptop open, preserving access records and security files. Camille remained near the railing, facing the ocean.
No one spoke to her.
Valeria collected napkins from beneath the chairs. She bent for the one still caught in the rosemary, and the movement pulled at the stiff collar of her uniform.
“Take the jacket off,” Leah said.
“I’m fine.”
“You are sweating through government property.”
Valeria looked down. A dark line had formed beneath one arm.
“That is an exaggeration.”
“It is visible from space.”
Owen handed her an empty trash bag. “Confirmed.”
The small absurdity loosened something in her chest. She removed the jacket and laid it over the back of a chair. The white shirt beneath felt too vulnerable, so she rolled the sleeves once.
Camille turned from the railing.
“Can I talk to you?”
Valeria tied the trash bag.
“You’ve had several opportunities.”
“I didn’t know Richard was coming here at night.”
“You knew enough to give him access.”
“I gave him the old guest keys last year.”
“You told him you owned the house.”
Camille looked toward Martin and the officers.
“Can we do this alone?”
“No.”
The refusal came sharper than Valeria intended.
Camille flinched, then covered it with anger.
“You think I’m dangerous now?”
“I think private conversations have served you better than they’ve served me.”
Martin’s typing slowed. Owen moved farther away, giving the appearance of privacy without abandoning witness.
Camille stepped closer.
“Grandma told me there was a letter.”
“When?”
“The week before she died.”
Valeria kept her face still.
“She said she had written down what she wanted. She said we would have to be kinder to each other than our mothers were.”
“That does not make you an owner.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Camille’s eyes reddened, but she did not cry. “I told Richard the house was partly mine.”
“Why?”
The question seemed to shame her more than the accusation.
Camille rubbed the lemonade stain with her thumb.
“Because his family came here the first summer after we married. They kept talking about the view and the cost and how lucky Richard was. His mother asked if my name was on the deed. I said yes.”
“You could have corrected her.”
“Not after everyone heard.”
“That was six years ago.”
“I know.”
“You repeated it for six years?”
“Not exactly.”
Valeria waited.
Camille glanced toward the driveway, where Richard’s SUV had left faint tire dust on the stone.
“He was having trouble with the business. He said we should rent the house when we weren’t using it. I told him we couldn’t. He asked why. I said the family trust had restrictions.”
“There is no family trust.”
“I know.”
“You created one?”
“Not on paper.”
Martin stopped typing.
Camille heard it.
She looked at him. “I didn’t forge anything.”
“Did Richard?” Valeria asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming expensive.”
Camille’s mouth tightened. “He had investors interested in a coastal rental company. He wanted to use the house as the flagship property. I told him no.”
“Because it wasn’t yours?”
“Because I knew you’d find out.”
The honesty arrived ugly and late.
Valeria preferred it to another careful lie.
“What did he show the investors?”
“Photos. Projections. Renovation ideas. He said it was preliminary.”
“Did he take deposits?”
Camille looked down.
Martin closed his laptop.
“How much?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Camille.”
“Maybe forty thousand.”
The ocean kept moving.
Owen set down the trash bag.
Leah leaned against the outdoor counter, her face unreadable.
Valeria removed the chipped key from the ring and placed it on the table.
“From whom?”
“Three people, I think. Maybe four. He said it was refundable.”
“For what?”
“Priority booking. Membership. I don’t know what he called it.”
“You knew he accepted money based on this property?”
“I told him to return it.”
“Did he?”
“He said he did.”
Martin turned the laptop toward himself again. “What was the company name?”
Camille pressed her lips together.
“Bell Coast Private.”
May you like
Martin typed.
Within a minute, he found a glossy website showing the house beneath a gold logo. The photographs had been taken during different seasons. Some came from the public listing Eleanor had used years earlier when she considered selling. Others were recent and showed furniture Valeria had purchased after the last hurricane.
