Chương 5
Rachel swallowed.
“I’ll step away from client meetings.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It’s what I can do today.”
Leah stared at her, then nodded once.
It was not forgiveness. It was a temporary arrangement.
At ten thirty, Naomi called.
“The hotel says the ballroom camera experienced a software reset between eight forty-one and eight forty-four.”
Rachel sat very still.
“The incident happened at eight forty-two.”
“Yes.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Do not use that word in writing.”
“Are there other cameras?”
“Corridor footage shows Victoria approaching Sophie. No audio. The interior camera is unavailable.”
“Unavailable or deleted?”
“They have not said.”
Rachel looked through the studio windows at traffic moving along the avenue. A delivery truck blocked a bus lane. A man in a red coat argued with the driver through an open window.
“Elias?”
“No response.”
“Call again.”
“I did.”
“Then go to his house.”
“Rachel.”
“He wrote his name inside my daughter’s locket.”
“Daniel wrote his name.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“No, it isn’t. That difference is why you hired me.”
Rachel pressed her thumb into the cut on her palm.
Naomi continued, “We will send an investigator. You will not visit him. You will not call from another number. You will not turn a frightened witness into someone who can credibly accuse us of harassment.”
“What makes you think he’s frightened?”
“People who ignore two calls from a dead man’s widow are usually frightened, guilty, or both.”
Elias contacted Rachel that night.
He did not call. He sent a message from an unfamiliar number.
I saw what happened to Sophie. I have something Daniel asked me to keep. I should have called before. I’m sorry.
A second message arrived before Rachel could answer.
Do not contact my office. Thursday, 6:30 p.m. North parking lot of St. Matthew’s. Come alone.
Rachel forwarded both messages to Naomi.
Naomi called immediately.
“You are not going alone.”
“He asked me to.”
“He does not set the rules.”
“He has Daniel’s copy.”
“He may have nothing. He may be recording you. He may be working for Victoria.”
“Then we’ll find out.”
“We’ll send the investigator.”
“He won’t meet an investigator.”
“Then I go with you.”
“He said alone.”
Naomi was silent.
Rachel stood in Daniel’s closet while they spoke. His suits still hung according to color, although Rachel had donated most of his shoes. One hotel pen remained in the pocket of a navy jacket.
She took it out and turned it between her fingers.
“I’ll wear a wire,” she said.
“This isn’t television.”
“I’ll share my location.”
“Location sharing will tell me where your body is.”
“That sounded more dramatic than you intended.”
“I intended exactly that.”
Rachel sat on the floor.
From Sophie’s room came the murmur of an audiobook.
“I need to do this.”
“No. You need the information. Those are different things.”
“He trusted me to protect her.”
“Daniel trusted a lot of people badly.”
Rachel went quiet.
Naomi softened, but only slightly. “I’ll wait across the street. You stay in the open. You do not get into his car. You do not promise confidentiality. You do not promise immunity. You do not promise money. You do not threaten him.”
“I know.”
“You promised your husband a great many things too, I assume. That did not turn you into a lawyer.”
On Thursday evening, rain darkened the parking lot of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. Rachel arrived at six twenty-five and parked beneath a dead maple tree.
Elias Benton stood beside a silver sedan near the far end of the lot. He wore a brown overcoat that was too large through the shoulders. His hair had thinned since Daniel’s funeral. He held a waterproof document envelope under one arm.
Rachel approached without an umbrella.
“You look like him from far away,” Elias said.
It was the wrong thing to say.
Rachel stopped ten feet from him.
“No, I don’t.”
“I meant the way you walk.”
“I know what you meant.”
Rain gathered on his glasses.
He removed them, wiped them on his tie, and made them worse.
“I’m sorry about Sophie.”
“You said you have something.”
He looked toward the church. A choir rehearsal had begun inside. Through the walls came the muffled rise and fall of a hymn.
“Daniel gave this to me on June fifteenth,” Elias said. “He said if anything happened to him, I was to wait until someone produced a document dated June fourteenth.”
“Victoria filed a will dated June fourteenth eleven months ago.”
“I know.”
“Why did you wait?”
His mouth tightened.
“That answer is in the envelope.”
“Tell me.”
“I have a wife with multiple sclerosis. Hale Hospitality’s health plan covers a treatment her old plan denied.”
Rachel stared at him.
“I’m supposed to understand?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“He said not to give it to Victoria, Glenn, or anyone employed by the company. After he died, Victoria told me the June will was legitimate. She said Daniel had become paranoid near the end.”
“He died in a car accident, Elias. He didn’t have an end.”
“He had a week.”
“What does that mean?”
Elias looked past her toward the road.
“A week before he died, he found out what we had done.”
Rachel felt the rain move down the back of her neck.
“What had you done?”
“I need you to read it.”
“What did you do?”
“I changed board records at Victoria’s direction. Daniel had approved some of it earlier. Not all. We moved dates. We reclassified payments. We made a loan covenant look satisfied when it wasn’t.”
The choir inside the church stopped mid-phrase.
Someone played three correcting notes on a piano.
Rachel said, “Did Daniel know?”
“Eventually.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Elias put on his glasses.
“Yes. Some of it.”
The parking lot seemed to tilt slightly, though Rachel did not move.
Elias extended the envelope.
“His letter explains.”
She took it.
It was heavier than paper should have been.
May you like
“What’s in here?”
“A letter. A copy of his February will. A drive. Instructions for accessing a server archive. And a statement I signed last night.”
