Chương 8
Rachel looked at her.
Neither woman spoke.
Finally Vanessa set the receipt on the table.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel’s throat tightened.
“Leave.”
Vanessa left.
Rachel stood by the window until Vanessa’s car disappeared.
Then she sat on the kitchen floor.
The next major development did not come from police.
It came from a pawnshop owner named Gerald Pike, who called Rachel on a Monday afternoon and asked whether she had recently sold part of her father’s coin collection.
Rachel’s first response was suspicion.
“How did you get my number?”
“Your father’s inventory cards.”
“What?”
“Your phone number is written on one.”
Rachel stood.
“Which coin?”
“A 1916-D Mercury dime.”
Her father’s favorite.
Rachel sat down again.
“Where are you?”
Pike owned a small coin-and-jewelry shop beside a laundromat.
Rachel arrived before Ortiz could stop her, although this time she called the detective from the parking lot.
Ortiz said, “Do not ask him to hand you anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You absolutely were.”
Rachel did not answer.
Inside, Gerald Pike was a thin man in his late sixties wearing magnifying glasses pushed onto his forehead.
The shop smelled faintly of dust and metal.
He placed both palms on the glass counter.
“You’re Tom Cole’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“I knew your dad.”
“That doesn’t narrow things down. He talked to strangers in elevators.”
Pike smiled.
“True.”
Rachel did not.
His smile disappeared.
“I heard about your little girl.”
“Thank you.”
The words had become automatic.
He looked down.
“I bought six coins three days after she died.”
Rachel’s body tightened.
“From whom?”
Pike glanced toward the door.
“Man said he was Tom’s son.”
“David.”
“That’s the name.”
Rachel gripped the edge of the counter.
“You still have them?”
“Most.”
“Most?”
“I sold one.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Her father’s coins suddenly seemed absurdly unimportant.
Then she pictured David standing in this shop days after Abby died, bargaining.
“How much did you give him?”
“Seventeen thousand.”
“The collection is worth more than sixty.”
“He didn’t bring the whole collection.”
“Did he say where he got them?”
“Said inheritance.”
“Did you ask for paperwork?”
Pike’s expression hardened slightly.
“I run a legal business.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.”
“You were about to.”
Rachel let go of the counter.
“Probably.”
He sighed.
“I copied his ID. Made him sign a seller declaration. We hold transactions. We follow reporting requirements.”
“Good.”
Pike studied her.
“Your dad brought that dime in every year for twenty years and asked me if I thought it had gotten prettier.”
Rachel looked at him.
“He did that?”
“Every February.”
“Why February?”
“No idea.”
That sounded exactly like her father.
Pike said, “I’m sorry I bought it.”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
Rachel looked at the rows of coins beneath the glass.
“My brother did.”
Ortiz arrived eleven minutes later.
She was not happy.
But the pawnshop documentation mattered.
David had sold property belonging to Rachel.
It established a financial act connected to the secret trip.
His lawyer adjusted the story.
David now admitted entering Rachel’s house.
He claimed he believed the coins were partly his under an unresolved family inheritance dispute.
He claimed Abby saw him and became upset because she knew her mother did not want him there.
He claimed he left the house while Abby was alive.
Rachel learned this from Vanessa, not police.
“He says she was in the kitchen when he left,” Vanessa said.
They were talking by phone.
Rachel had stopped blocking her.
Not forgiven.
Stopped blocking.
“What time?”
“He says around eleven.”
“The camera went down at eleven oh-two.”
“I know.”
“He says he left before she died.”
“Yes.”
Rachel’s fingernails pressed into her palm.
“Do you believe him?”
Vanessa started to answer.
Stopped.
That was new.
A month earlier she would have chosen an answer quickly enough to live inside it.
“I believe he’s capable of leaving,” she said finally.
“What does that mean?”
Vanessa’s voice broke.
“It means I don’t know what he did.”
Two days later Ortiz asked Rachel to come to the station.
The interview room was colder than usual.
Ortiz brought no coffee.
Rachel noticed that and became afraid.
“What happened?”
Ortiz sat opposite her.
“We received additional forensic findings.”
Rachel waited.
“The outage at your home network was caused physically.”
“What does that mean?”
“The router lost power.”
“Someone unplugged it.”
“Yes.”
“David.”
“We can’t establish who unplugged it from the router alone.”
Rachel stared.
Ortiz continued.
“The system’s local storage was damaged.”
Rachel frowned.
“The camera?”
“The memory card.”
“Damaged how?”
“It appears someone attempted to remove or destroy it.”
Rachel felt her pulse in her jaw.
“But you recovered the video.”
“Some.”
“How?”
“Partial files remained on the card, and some clips had already uploaded.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“Show me the second clip.”
Ortiz was quiet.
Then she opened a laptop.
The footage lasted nine seconds.
Abby stood near the patio door.
David was closer than in the first clip.
Close enough that Rachel could see his profile.
Close enough that there was no longer room for anybody to argue about the shirt.
Abby seemed to say something.
No audio.
David bent toward her.
She backed away.
He reached out.
The clip ended.
Rachel stared at the blank screen.
“Again.”
Ortiz replayed it.
“Again.”
“Rachel.”
“Again.”
The third time Rachel noticed Abby’s hands.
One held something white.
“What is that?”
Ortiz paused the frame.
The image was blurred.
“Paper?”
“We think so.”
Rachel moved closer.
Abby’s hand held a white rectangle.
A photograph.
Or envelope.
Or card.
“What did David say she had?”
“He hasn’t discussed the clip.”
Rachel sat back.
“What was she holding?”
“We don’t know.”
Rachel stared.
Then a memory surfaced.
Abby at breakfast that Tuesday.
Cereal milk on her chin.
Asking, “Why does Grandpa write money numbers on pictures?”
Rachel had been late.
She had barely listened.
“What pictures?”
“The old ones.”
“Where’d you find them?”
“Grandpa’s box.”
“Which box?”
“The brown one.”
May you like
Rachel had said, Don’t mess with Grandpa’s stuff, okay?
Abby had rolled her eyes.
