Chương 7
“Sometimes it is.”
He sat in the chair beside the bed. The torn backpack strap lay across his knee. He picked it up and examined the stitching because it was easier than looking at her.
Violet said, “Did you find Nora?”
“No.”
“Did Grant take the phone?”
“Yes.”
“So you lost the proof.”
“I still have the ledger.”
“What’s in it?”
“I haven’t opened it.”
She stared at him.
“Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Mom left that thing, and someone broke into our house, and Nora—”
“I’m turning it over to Internal Affairs.”
“You don’t even know what it says.”
“That protects the evidence.”
“Since when do you care about doing things properly?”
He placed the backpack strap down.
“Since I did enough improperly to understand the difference.”
Violet’s eyes filled, but she blinked until they cleared.
“You left because of Mom.”
“I left because I thought I could stop Grant.”
“You heard his name and forgot I was here.”
Ethan tried to answer, but every version sounded like defense.
Violet looked toward the window. Rain streaked the glass and broke the parking-lot lights into pale smears.
“I heard Nora tell them the code,” she said. “She kept saying they weren’t supposed to be there yet.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She told the man called Ray to take the safe and go. Then I came downstairs.”
“And she saw you.”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
Violet pulled at a loose thread in the blanket.
“She said my name.”
“How?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was she warning you? Warning them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
Violet’s face hardened. “I was a little busy.”
“You’re right.”
“She looked scared.”
“Of you?”
“No. For me. I think.”
Ethan waited.
Violet said, “Then Ray asked who I was. Nora told me to run.”
That was different from what Ethan had imagined. Not enough to forgive anything, but enough to complicate the shape of blame.
“Why didn’t you tell the police that?”
“Grant was standing there.”
“You told him Nora opened the door.”
“I wanted him to know I saw her.”
“Why?”
“So he wouldn’t hurt her too.”
Ethan leaned back in the chair.
Violet’s fingers went to the bruise at her throat. She stopped before touching it.
“She did something terrible,” Violet said. “But she looked like she thought it was only going to be one kind of terrible.”
Ethan almost smiled. It was the kind of sentence Laura would have understood immediately.
“I need to go with Detective Ruiz,” he said.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going after Grant again?”
“No.”
“Promise.”
He looked at her.
Promises had become dangerous between them. He had promised to return from deployments by certain dates and missed them. He had promised Laura’s death would make sense once the report came. He had promised Violet that living with Nora would be temporary.
“I promise I will not go after Grant alone.”
Violet did not look satisfied.
“That was very specific.”
“It’s the promise I can keep.”
She reached beneath the blanket and took out a folded sheet of hospital paper.
“What is that?”
“The license plate.”
“Whose?”
“The car outside the house.”
Ethan unfolded it. Violet had written seven characters in block letters, then crossed out the last two and written alternatives.
“I saw it from the basement window,” she said. “I wasn’t sure about the end.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I told Grant.”
Ethan felt the room tilt slightly.
“What did he say?”
“He said it was probably a neighbor.”
“Did you tell Ruiz?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t trust her.”
There it was: the ordinary damage of example. He had not instructed Violet to hide evidence. He had only shown her, for years, that trust was a door other people used against you.
He folded the paper and handed it back.
“You give this to Ruiz yourself.”
“You can take it.”
“No. It’s yours. You saw it. You tell her exactly what you remember and exactly what you don’t.”
Violet looked down at the paper.
“What if I’m wrong?”
“Then you’re wrong honestly.”
“That sounds like something Mom would say.”
“She probably said it to me first.”
Violet’s mouth moved, almost a smile. It vanished quickly.
As Ethan stood, she reached for his sleeve.
“Dad.”
He turned.
“Nora made me a birthday card.”
“I have it.”
“She left it on the table before they came.”
“It got caught under the safe.”
“Is it ruined?”
“A little.”
Violet released his sleeve. “Don’t lose that too.”
Internal Affairs did not meet them in a station house. Lieutenant Cho directed Ruiz to a county government building used by the police training division, where cameras covered every entrance and Grant had no assignment privileges.
Cho arrived with an assistant state’s attorney named Miriam Bell and a digital forensics examiner carrying two sealed cases. Cho was fifty, broad-shouldered, and so soft-spoken that everyone else lowered their voices around him without noticing.
Marcus received a public defender before anyone questioned him. The attorney, Beth Keane, was young, sharp, and unimpressed by every badge in the room. She sat beside Marcus and asked whether Ethan had threatened him.
Marcus looked at Ethan through the glass wall of the conference room.
“Yes,” he said.
Keane asked, “Did he strike you?”
“He shoved me. He trapped me against a wall.”
“Did he display a weapon?”
“No.”
“Did he prevent you from leaving?”
Marcus hesitated. “I thought he would.”
Keane looked at Ethan. “That is not the same as being free to leave.”
Ethan said nothing.
Marcus told them about the warehouse, Ray, the phone, Grant’s tracking app, the break-in, and the recorded order. He admitted entering the Cole home and removing the safe. He denied harming Violet. He described Grant’s instructions, which had come through a disposable messaging account connected to the app.
The digital examiner asked for Marcus’s login credentials.
Marcus laughed. “Grant set it up.”
May you like
Keane touched his wrist. “Answer only what you know.”
“I know the PIN he gave me.”
