Chương 9
“Why was she waiting?”
“We asked.”
“And?”
“She said she saw Mr. Grant leave the childcare floor earlier and followed because she heard him arguing on the phone.”
“That’s different from accidentally seeing him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she say that before?”
“She did not initially describe it that way.”
Daniel stood from Rebecca’s back porch table.
“She lied?”
“Be careful.”
“I’m asking a factual question.”
“She gave an incomplete account.”
“That is a lawyer’s version of lied.”
“And you are acting like a lawyer again.”
Daniel paced.
Rain had stopped. The yard smelled of wet earth and cut grass.
“If she followed him, Michael’s lawyer will say—”
“I know what Michael’s lawyer may say.”
“He’ll say she was spying.”
“That doesn’t make grabbing her lawful.”
“No.”
“He’ll say she misinterpreted.”
“I know.”
“He’ll say she had motive to create a story because she knew I was investigating him.”
Carver paused.
“Were you?”
Daniel stopped.
“No.”
“Then why would she think that?”
“She knows what I do. She hears things.”
“What things?”
Daniel tried to remember.
Phone calls at home.
Dinner conversations.
Complaints about Michael’s Delmont deal.
Victoria mentioning anonymous emails.
Adults speaking around Emma because adults assumed children were furniture until inconvenient evidence proved otherwise.
“I don’t know.”
“That may matter.”
After the call, he found Emma in Rebecca’s garage helping Lucy paint a wooden birdhouse.
Blue paint covered three fingers.
Daniel stood in the doorway.
Emma looked up.
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The question face.”
He leaned against the frame.
“Can we talk?”
Lucy immediately said, “I can leave.”
Emma looked at her.
“No.”
Daniel understood.
A witness.
Or protection.
He pulled up a folding chair.
“You went to the hotel garage because you were following Michael.”
Emma stared at the birdhouse.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“You’d get mad.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t supposed to leave.”
Daniel watched her paint a crooked line along the roof.
“Were you trying to spy on him?”
She shrugged.
“I heard him say, ‘You got paid.’”
Daniel’s pulse changed.
“Where?”
“In the hall.”
“What exactly did you hear?”
Emma put down the brush.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“That’s okay.”
“You always want exact.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“He was on his phone. He said somebody got paid and to stop calling. Then he went in the elevator.”
“And you followed.”
“Yes.”
“Why take a picture?”
“Because you take pictures when people lie.”
Lucy looked between them.
Daniel felt heat rise in his face.
“When did you see me do that?”
“The parking guy.”
He remembered.
Six months earlier, a contractor had damaged Daniel’s car and denied it. Daniel photographed the truck, the driver, the scrape, the time display on the dashboard.
Emma had been with him.
“You said if people know you have proof, they stop changing the story.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
His own voice, returned to him.
Emma continued.
“Michael was telling you that the emails were fake. Victoria said somebody got paid.”
Victoria.
“What did she say?”
Emma frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“You were eating noodles.”
That helped him immediately.
Two weeks earlier.
Takeout from the Thai place near his apartment.
Victoria had stopped by with revised foundation messaging.
Emma had been doing homework at the table.
Victoria said, Somebody is being paid to keep this alive.
She had meant a hostile public-relations campaign.
Daniel remembered laughing.
Michael said competitors were funding it.
Emma had heard something else.
“When you saw Michael with Leonard, what happened?”
Emma picked at dried paint on her thumb.
“He saw me.”
“What did he say?”
“‘What are you doing down here?’”
“Then?”
“I said nothing.”
“Did you try to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
She rubbed the bandage.
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“He took my phone.”
“How?”
“Grabbed here.”
She touched her wrist.
“Did he squeeze?”
“Yes.”
“Did he twist?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“He said I shouldn’t take pictures of people.”
“That part is fair,” Lucy said.
Daniel looked at her.
Lucy turned red.
“Sorry.”
“No,” Emma said. “It is.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Messy.
Human.
No clean testimony.
No perfect victim.
Emma had broken a rule.
That did not erase what Michael did.
“What happened after?”
“He deleted the picture.”
Daniel blinked.
“But it was on your phone.”
“I got it back.”
“How?”
“Recently deleted.”
He stared at her.
“You recovered it?”
Emma looked almost offended.
“I’m eight, not dead.”
Lucy laughed.
Daniel did too.
Then Emma said, “He made me delete it and said if you saw it you’d think I was snooping.”
“You were snooping.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought I’d care more about that than why you were hurt.”
She said nothing.
That was answer enough.
At four that afternoon, Victoria arrived at Rebecca’s.
She had driven up from Manhattan after spending six hours with detectives.
Daniel met her on the porch.
“You told Curtis somebody was being paid.”
“What?”
“Two weeks ago.”
She stared at him.
Then remembered.
“Oh.”
“Emma heard.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
“She followed Michael because of us.”
“Daniel.”
“I know.”
“No, don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make us the cause of what he did.”
“We created the context.”
“We talked in front of a kid. That was careless. It did not make him grab her.”
Daniel looked away.
Victoria leaned against the porch railing.
“I know you want a clean equation.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You want A caused B caused C, then you can find the exact line where everything went wrong and punish yourself there.”
He looked at her.
“That’s annoyingly accurate.”
“I bill by the hour.”
He almost smiled.
Then she said, “Leonard Price contacted me.”
Daniel straightened.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“What did he want?”
“To talk.”
“Did you?”
“No. I gave his information to Carver.”
“Good.”
“He sent a message first.”
“What did it say?”
Victoria took out her phone.
She had preserved the message.
Michael wasn’t paying me to stay quiet. I was trying to give the money back.
Daniel read it twice.
May you like
“That changes things.”
“Yes.”
