Chương 2
Maya lifted one cup.
Claire almost smiled.
Almost.
A nurse came in, checked the monitor, asked Claire whether she felt any tightening, bleeding, dizziness, pain, or decrease in movement.
“No.”
“Your knee?”
“Embarrassed.”
The nurse looked at the reddening skin beneath the hem of the gown.
“Your knee does not experience embarrassment.”
“You don’t know my knee.”
That earned a brief smile.
The nurse adjusted one of the monitor straps.
“The obstetrician wants another twenty minutes.”
Claire nodded.
After she left, Maya handed her the coffee.
Claire stared at it.
“I do hate hospital coffee.”
“I know.”
“Why did you buy me one?”
“You keep asking for mine when I buy coffee you claim is terrible.”
Claire took it.
She drank.
It was terrible.
The familiarity of that fact nearly made her cry.
She did not.
Instead she watched the heartbeat move across the screen and asked, “How long did you know?”
Maya’s fingers tightened around her own cup.
“About Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I suspected.”
“How long?”
Maya looked toward the window.
There was nothing to see but a reflection of the room and, beyond it, a slice of the city eight floors down.
“Eleven days.”
Claire turned her head.
“You suspected my husband for eleven days and didn’t tell me?”
“I told you the signature package had anomalies.”
“You told me legal needed to review it.”
“They did.”
“Maya.”
“I did not have proof that he knowingly signed anything.”
“You had enough to suspect him.”
“Yes.”
“And you decided not to tell me.”
Maya set her cup on the windowsill.
“I decided not to accuse your husband while you were eight months pregnant based on a metadata discrepancy and an access log I couldn’t explain.”
“You could have told me what you thought.”
“You were sleeping three hours a night.”
“That was my decision to make.”
“Yes.”
Maya said it without defending herself.
That made Claire angrier.
She looked away.
The monitor continued its fast, mechanical rhythm.
After a while, Claire said, “I would have wanted to know.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Maya’s jaw shifted.
“No. I knew you would say you wanted to know. Those aren’t always the same thing.”
Claire turned back.
Maya met her eyes.
It was an insolent answer.
It was also probably true.
Claire had spent the previous month insisting she was not tired while falling asleep in cars. She had attended a six-hour audit committee meeting after her obstetrician suggested fewer workdays. She had told Maya she did not want Ethan dragged into the investigation until they had “something real,” then rejected two opportunities to define what real meant.
Claire sipped the coffee again.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say you know.”
Maya picked up her cup.
“Understood.”
The fetal monitor clicked softly.
Claire closed her eyes.
Ethan’s voice came back exactly as he had said it.
I signed everything.
Not I didn’t know.
Not She made me.
Not Claire, wait.
Everything.
A knock came at the door.
Detective Marcus Brooks entered wearing the same dark suit he had worn at the gala, though his tie was now tucked into a pocket. He was in his early forties, broad-shouldered, with the exhausted look of a man whose job routinely destroyed dinner reservations.
Claire looked past him.
“Where is Ethan?”
“In custody.”
“Victoria?”
“Same.”
“Charged?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
Brooks glanced at Maya.
Maya stood.
“I’ll get another coffee.”
“You have one.”
“I suddenly want a different one.”
She left.
Brooks pulled the empty chair closer but did not sit until Claire nodded.
“The warrants tonight were for records and devices,” he said. “Their detention came out of what happened after we entered the ballroom.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother-in-law attempted to leave through a service corridor while one of our investigators was speaking to her.”
Claire stared at him.
“That sounds like her.”
“She also handed her phone to a foundation employee and told him to destroy it.”
“That sounds even more like her.”
“The employee did not destroy it.”
“Smart employee.”
“Terrified employee.”
Brooks rubbed his thumb along the seam of a file folder.
“Your husband came voluntarily when asked. He has counsel.”
“Of course he does.”
“Mrs. Bennett has separate counsel.”
“Of course she does.”
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“The recording helps. It doesn’t make the case.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His tone irritated her.
She nearly told him exactly how many internal fraud reviews she had sat through as chair of Northstar Bancorp’s controlling shareholder committee. She nearly explained that her family owned enough voting stock to appoint directors but not enough to treat a regulated financial institution like a personal checking account.
Then she remembered her own sentence in the ballroom.
The woman who owns the bank.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
Brooks opened the folder.
“We found documents in Victoria’s office tonight. We still have to determine who prepared them, who knew what, whether signatures were forged, whether false representations were made to custodians, whether any interstate transfers were attempted, and what your husband meant by ‘everything.’”
“He meant everything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m married to him.”
“That’s not evidence.”
The words landed harder than Claire expected.
Brooks’s expression softened slightly.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong.”
“No. You’re saying being betrayed doesn’t make me qualified to interpret the betrayal.”
“I’m saying tonight was the beginning of proving what happened. Not the end.”
Claire looked down at her belly.
Her daughter shifted again beneath the gown.
“When can I speak to Ethan?”
“Your attorney is going to tell you not to.”
“I didn’t ask what my attorney is going to tell me.”
“You can speak to him when he’s released, if he’s released, and if he wants to speak to you.”
Claire laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Brooks noticed.
“What?”
“He wants to speak to me.”
May you like
“You sound sure.”
“He called me six times while you were searching our house.”
