Chương 3
Her father’s angry face.
The sentence about Claire not coming back alive.
When the officer asked exactly what Celeste had said about Grant paying her, Emma frowned.
“She said Daddy told her.”
“Told her what?”
“To make me stop.”
“Stop what?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
Earlier, Emma had said, She said Dad paid her to scare me.
Now it was different.
Not necessarily contradictory.
Not necessarily the same.
The officer did not react.
“What were you doing before she said that?”
“I found a paper.”
“What kind of paper?”
Emma pointed toward the upper deck.
“Like Mommy had.”
Claire looked at her.
“You found one of those?”
Emma nodded.
“Where?”
“By the chair.”
Celeste, Claire realized, had already opened the clutch before Claire arrived.
The pages had not been securely inside it.
The officer asked, “What did you do with the paper?”
“I gave it to the green lady.”
“Did she say anything?”
Emma stared at the carpet.
“Sweetheart?”
Emma whispered, “She said I shouldn’t read grown-up things.”
“Can you read those words?”
“I can read dollars.”
The detective later introduced herself as Mara Keene.
She was in her forties, wore practical black shoes, and did not seem impressed by the yacht.
That comforted Claire more than it should have.
Keene photographed the transfer pages where they had been recovered. She had the clutch, envelope, and phone placed in separate evidence bags after obtaining Celeste’s consent for the clutch to be examined. Celeste did not consent to a search of the phone.
Grant answered basic questions and then called a lawyer.
Thomas answered everything.
Claire answered until she realized her teeth were chattering.
“You need to get warm,” Keene said.
“I’m not cold.”
“Shock doesn’t care.”
Claire looked toward Emma, asleep now with her head on the sofa cushion.
“Is Celeste being arrested?”
“Not at this moment.”
Claire disliked the answer.
Keene saw that.
“I know.”
“She kicked a child’s life jacket away beside an open rail.”
“I know what you’re alleging.”
“I saw it.”
“And we’re documenting it.”
Claire swallowed what she wanted to say.
Keene’s expression softened by perhaps one degree.
“Mrs. Mercer, the fastest way to make an investigation weak is to make promises before we know what happened.”
Claire looked at the evidence bags.
“And what did happen?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Grant left the yacht with his attorney at 10:43 p.m.
Claire noticed the time because she was staring at her phone when he walked past the salon windows.
He did not come inside to say good night to Emma.
He sent Claire a text two minutes later.
Please don’t do anything irreversible tonight.
Claire read it three times.
Then she laughed.
It came out wrong.
Captain Ruiz, standing nearby, looked over.
“Sorry,” Claire said.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
That made him smile despite himself.
Only for a second.
Thomas arranged a car.
Claire refused to go to his house.
He offered the guest apartment the company kept near the marina.
“No.”
“A hotel, then.”
“I can book a hotel.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Thomas took that without defending himself.
Claire booked a room herself.
At midnight, she carried Emma through the lobby of a hotel where the night clerk pretended not to recognize them. Emma’s damp pigtails had come loose. Claire’s dress was stained at the knee. Her prosthetic socket had started rubbing the skin on her thigh, and every step sent a hot line of pain upward.
She put Emma in the bed without waking her fully.
Then she went into the bathroom, sat on the closed toilet, and removed her left leg.
The relief was immediate and humiliating.
The skin around the socket was red.
A small blister had opened.
Claire rested her forehead against the cool edge of the sink.
Eight months earlier, the first time she had seen the amputation, she had not cried.
She had stared at it for a long time.
Grant had cried.
He sat beside her and pressed both hands to his face, shoulders shaking, while Claire stared at the place where her leg used to be.
She had reached over and comforted him.
The memory arrived now because of the red skin.
Because on that hospital morning, Grant had rubbed the same part of her thigh very carefully and said, “We’ll figure it out.”
Claire opened her eyes.
Her phone buzzed.
Thomas.
She almost ignored it.
Then she answered.
“Emma’s asleep.”
“I won’t keep you.”
“That would be new for this family.”
Silence.
Thomas said, “Fair.”
Claire looked at the prosthetic leaning against the bathtub.
“Why did you change the trust?”
“I told you.”
“No. You announced it in front of sixty people. That isn’t the same thing.”
Thomas took a breath.
“I found payments I couldn’t explain.”
“To Celeste.”
“To several entities. Hers was one.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“And you waited until this morning?”
“I spent three weeks making sure I wasn’t looking at ordinary business.”
“You could have called me.”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me before I brought Emma onto that boat.”
“Yes.”
“You knew something was wrong with Grant and you let us walk into a party with him.”
Thomas did not answer.
Claire’s anger shifted shape.
“Why?”
“Because I hoped I was wrong.”
“That isn’t a reason.”
“It’s the reason.”
Claire stood, forgetting for a moment that her prosthetic was off.
Her balance went and she caught the sink.
“Claire?”
“I’m fine.”
She hated the automatic response as soon as it left her mouth.
Thomas waited.
She lowered herself again.
“What payments?”
“Consulting. Vendor work. Personal loans. Enough that I started looking backward.”
“How far?”
There was another pause.
“Past your accident.”
Claire felt the bathroom become very quiet.
The exhaust fan hummed overhead.
“What did you find?”
“Not enough to say what I’m afraid of.”
“Say it anyway.”
May you like
“I found that a maintenance invoice connected to the tender was approved from Grant’s office after being rejected by operations.”
Claire gripped the phone.
