Chương 8
“No. I looked him up last night.”
Ortiz held out her hand.
“Send me what you have.”
For the next three weeks, Sofia learned that discovering something horrifying and proving it were entirely different experiences.
Police interviewed Daniel repeatedly.
They subpoenaed records.
Thomas Cross hired two law firms and a public-relations firm.
His attorney maintained that Claire’s recording had been misinterpreted. Thomas admitted speaking to Claire but said he had warned her about possible defamation claims, not physical danger.
That was the first public change in his story.
At the hotel, he had said he did not know her.
Now he had known her enough to threaten litigation.
Reporters noticed.
So did Sofia.
Daniel moved into a furnished apartment owned by a friend.
He texted Sofia twice.
The first message said: I am sorry.
The second, three days later, said: Your winter coat is still here. I can have someone bring it to your mom’s.
She did not answer either.
On the fourth day, she drove to the apartment they had shared.
The doorman looked at her with such determined normality that Sofia almost thanked him.
“Afternoon, Ms. Bennett.”
“Hi, George.”
“Elevator’s been sticking on twelve.”
“Good to know.”
Nothing about the wedding.
Nothing about Daniel.
Sofia loved him for it.
Inside the apartment, Daniel’s absence was everywhere.
One coffee mug in the dishwasher.
No shaving cream beside the sink.
His running shoes gone.
She walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress.
Her wedding packing list was still taped to the closet door.
Passport.
Chargers.
Blue dress.
Daniel’s cuff links.
She tore it down.
Then she noticed the tiny hole in the wall above his dresser where he had removed a framed photograph.
Their engagement picture.
He had taken that.
But he had left the framed photograph of Claire on Sofia’s side of the room.
She stared at it.
Claire at twenty-seven on a beach in North Carolina, hair blowing across her face, one hand raised because she hated being photographed.
The necklace was visible at her throat.
Sofia carried the photograph into the kitchen and set it on the counter.
For twenty minutes she packed Daniel’s remaining clothes into boxes.
Then she stopped.
She was furious that the shirts smelled like him.
She was more furious that she missed him.
She sat on the floor beside the boxes and cried until she got a headache.
At six, her phone rang.
Evelyn.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes.”
“We found something.”
Sofia stood.
“We?”
“I should have said police found something.”
“What?”
“A Cross Meridian archived vehicle log.”
Sofia gripped the counter.
“Black SUV?”
“Yes.”
Vale Protective Services had billed Cross Meridian for a black Chevrolet Suburban on the night Claire disappeared.
The vehicle’s toll transponder registered on the interstate twenty-one minutes after Daniel called his father.
Exit 24.
The same exit.
Calvin Price had signed the invoice.
It still did not prove he had been driving.
It did not prove Claire entered the vehicle.
It did not prove Thomas ordered anything.
But the story had changed again.
Two days later, Calvin Price’s attorney contacted police.
Price would agree to an interview.
He denied harming Claire.
He admitted following her.
Thomas Cross, he said, believed Claire had stolen proprietary records. Price had been instructed to retrieve company property and determine whether she had accomplices.
“Retrieve,” Sofia said when Ortiz explained it.
“That was his word.”
“Did he find her?”
“He says no.”
“Do you believe him?”
Ortiz gave her a tired look.
“My job is not to have a favorite answer.”
Sofia sat across from her in a small café near the station.
She had started meeting Ortiz without her mother because Margaret’s blood pressure had climbed and her doctor told her to reduce stress, advice everyone found almost insulting.
“What does Daniel say?”
“That Price is lying.”
“Of course he does.”
Ortiz drank coffee.
“You still love him.”
Sofia stared.
“That is wildly inappropriate.”
“Yes.”
“Are detectives supposed to say things like that?”
“Probably not.”
Sofia looked out the window.
A bus hissed at the curb.
“I hate him.”
“Those aren’t opposites.”
“I know.”
Ortiz nodded.
Sofia asked, “Do you think he killed Claire?”
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The answer came faster than Sofia expected.
“Why not?”
“Because evidence so far points elsewhere.”
“That isn’t the same as knowing.”
“No.”
“Could he have hired Price?”
“We have no evidence of that.”
“Could he have been with Claire later?”
“His building garage records show he entered at twelve forty-seven and did not leave again until morning.”
Sofia looked down.
“So he really did go home.”
“Yes.”
“And sleep?”
“I didn’t ask how well.”
Sofia picked at the paper sleeve around her coffee cup.
“What about my father-in-law?”
“Almost father-in-law.”
“Whatever.”
Ortiz looked at her.
“We have evidence Thomas knew Claire was investigating him. Evidence he contacted Price after Daniel called him. Evidence Price’s vehicle went to Exit 24. That is significant. We still need to connect those facts to Claire’s death.”
“What if you can’t?”
“That happens.”
Sofia hated her for saying it.
Ortiz let her.
After a moment she said, “Cold cases do not become easy because the family finally gets a break.”
Sofia’s eyes burned.
“I thought the necklace was the answer.”
“It was a door.”
“I’m tired of doors.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Ortiz nodded.
“You’re right.”
The lack of argument left Sofia with nowhere to put her anger.
She went home.
That night she found one of Claire’s old notebooks in a plastic storage tub at Margaret’s house.
The police had returned boxes of Claire’s possessions years earlier after determining they were not needed as evidence. Margaret had kept most of them in the basement because neither woman could decide what to throw away.
Claire’s handwriting filled cheap spiral notebooks in compressed black lines.
Most of it meant nothing to Sofia.
Phone numbers without names.
May you like
Restaurant receipts taped beside interview notes.
A reminder to buy cat food, though Claire had never owned a cat. Possibly someone else’s cat. Possibly one of the harmless strange details grief could turn into a mystery if you let it.
