Chương 4
“Okay.”
At the station, Hall placed Claire’s phone on the table inside a clear evidence bag.
Ryan’s mouth went dry.
It was an older iPhone with a pale-green case, chipped at one corner. He remembered buying the case for Claire because she had dropped the previous phone in a bowl of soup.
“Is that hers?” Hall asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“There’s a crack across the top left from before she died. She refused to fix it.”
Hall sat opposite him.
“We found it in a locked drawer in your wife’s dressing room.”
Ryan stared at him.
“The key was?”
“Also in the dressing room.”
“Did Mia tell you where she found it?”
“She says the drawer was open Tuesday afternoon when Mrs. Cole was packing clothes. Mia recognized the case.”
Ryan pictured it.
A half-open drawer.
A child walking past.
One small mistake.
“How did Vanessa have Claire’s phone?”
“That’s one of the things we’re trying to establish.”
“Have you opened it?”
“It was powered off when recovered. We have a warrant application in process for the contents.”
Ryan rubbed his jaw.
Hall watched him.
“You said Mrs. Cole told you this phone had been destroyed.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A few days after Claire’s funeral.”
“Did you ask to see it?”
Ryan felt irritation rise, then shame because the question was fair.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My sister was dead.”
Hall did not react.
Ryan looked at the table.
“I was handling her estate, the house, probate, insurance, Mia’s school, my mother. Vanessa offered to sort personal belongings. I let her.”
“Did your sister and your wife get along?”
Ryan almost said yes.
The word reached the back of his teeth and stopped.
“They were close once.”
“Once?”
“They’d had some kind of disagreement before Claire died.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
“Claire told me it was between them.”
“And Vanessa?”
“Said the same thing.”
Hall wrote something.
Ryan disliked the sound of the pen.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m asking questions.”
“You asked whether they got along.”
“I did.”
Ryan sat back.
His impatience embarrassed him. This was not Hall’s failure.
“Sorry.”
Hall capped the pen.
“We found something else.”
He slid a printed photograph across the table.
It showed the back gate of Ryan’s property.
The latch had been wrapped with a thin strip of dark fabric.
“What is that?”
“Material caught inside the latch assembly. Preliminary comparison suggests it came from a burgundy garment.”
Ryan looked at the photograph.
Vanessa’s robe.
He heard her voice again.
I woke up and she was gone.
“The gate didn’t blow open,” he said.
“We don’t believe it did.”
Another photograph.
Mia’s pale slipper in muddy grass near the creek.
“We also found no prints on the exterior surface except one partial belonging to Mrs. Cole.”
Ryan’s chest went cold.
“What did Mia say?”
“That she didn’t go outside Tuesday night.”
“Then Vanessa put it there.”
Hall did not confirm it.
Ryan leaned forward.
“Where is she?”
“Her attorney brought her in this morning.”
“Is she under arrest?”
“Not at this moment.”
Ryan stood.
Hall remained seated.
“That’s unbelievable.”
“We have a seven-year-old victim, a staged disappearance, a locked room, multiple adults giving incomplete statements, and a phone that may or may not relate to any of it. I know you want this to be simple.”
“You think I want simple?”
“I think you want fast.”
Ryan stared at him.
Hall continued.
“Fast and correct are different jobs.”
Ryan sat again.
He hated the sentence because it sounded like something he might have said to someone else.
“What did Grace tell you?”
“I can’t share her full statement.”
“Did she know?”
Hall waited.
“Ryan, I need you to think very carefully before you decide who you’re angry with.”
“I’m already angry.”
“I can see that.”
“Then answer me.”
Hall folded his hands.
“She admits bringing Mia food Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“She knew.”
“She says Mrs. Cole told her Mia had become violent after finding something that belonged to her mother and needed to be kept in the storage room until a private crisis counselor arrived.”
Ryan stared at him.
“Grace believed that?”
“At first.”
“And after Vanessa reported her missing?”
Hall said nothing.
Ryan understood.
Grace had kept silent even after the search began.
The betrayal was smaller than Vanessa’s and somehow more ordinary.
That made it hurt differently.
“She watched people search the creek.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You should hear that from her.”
Ryan stood again.
This time Hall did not stop him.
“Can I see my wife?”
“No.”
“I need one question answered.”
“You need a lot of questions answered.”
Ryan looked at the phone in the evidence bag.
“Yes.”
He returned to the hotel at eleven forty-three.
Mia was building a fortress from sofa cushions.
Elaine sat inside it.
Ryan stopped in the doorway.
His mother peered over a cushion.
“We’re under attack.”
“By who?”
Mia answered, “People who buy pink pajamas.”
Ryan took off his jacket.
“Serious threat.”
Mia studied his face.
The game disappeared from hers.
“Did they find Mom’s phone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you watch it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“The police have it.”
Her mouth tightened.
“What did you see on it, Mia?”
Elaine looked sharply at him.
Ryan raised a hand.
“I’m not asking you to tell me everything. Just what made you afraid.”
Mia pulled one cushion into her lap.
“I saw Mom.”
“In a picture?”
“A video.”
“Was she talking?”
Mia nodded.
“What did she say?”
The child looked down.
“She was mad at Vanessa.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t remember all of it.”
“That’s okay.”
“She said, ‘You don’t get to take from Mia because Ryan doesn’t pay attention.’”
Ryan stopped breathing.
Elaine whispered, “What?”
Mia’s eyes filled.
“And then Vanessa came in and took the phone.”
Ryan crouched in front of her.
“She saw you watching it?”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
“She asked if I showed anybody.”
“What did you say?”
May you like
“I said no.”
“Then?”
