Chương 7
“Police?” Rachel asked.
Noland examined the splintering. “Not us.”
Several boxes remained, but a velvet envelope marked with Helena Vane’s initials was empty.
Mara looked at the evidence bag containing the pearl.
“Was there a matching set?” Noland asked.
“Family jewelry,” Mara said. “Mostly sentimental.”
Rachel photographed the damage. “Sebastian had no authorized access after the order.”
“He may have opened it before leaving,” Noland said.
“Why?”
No one answered.
In the upstairs office, the laptop charger was missing. The computer itself had been shut down, not sleeping. Rachel sealed it in a padded case.
Mara noticed a framed photograph turned facedown on a bookshelf.
She lifted it.
Livia stood between Elias and Helena at a summer graduation, younger and sunburned, laughing at someone outside the frame. Elias wore dress blues and the uncomfortable smile he used in every family photograph. Helena’s hand rested against his chest as if keeping him from drifting back to work.
Mara returned the photograph upright.
Downstairs, the mansion’s house manager waited near the foyer. Her name was Celia Ward. She was sixty-three, narrow-shouldered, and dressed in a gray uniform that looked chosen to make her disappear against the walls.
Noland asked whether she had been present the previous evening.
“Until seven thirty.”
“Who told you to leave?”
“Mr. Crowe.”
“Was that unusual?”
“Not entirely.”
“What does that mean?”
Celia folded her hands. “He sometimes preferred privacy.”
“Did Mrs. Crowe know staff were leaving?”
“She asked me why the kitchen was closing early.”
“What did you say?”
“That Mr. Crowe had dismissed us.”
“Did she react?”
Celia looked toward the drawing room.
“She said, ‘Of course he did.’”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Mara watched the woman’s fingers. The right thumb rubbed the knuckle of the left hand in a steady circle.
“Ms. Ward,” Mara said, “did you see an injury happen?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see Mr. Crowe grab his wife?”
Celia’s eyes moved to the front doors. “I have worked for the family eleven years.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Noland gave Mara a warning glance. This was her interview.
Celia swallowed. “I saw many things that married people would prefer employees not discuss.”
“Such as?”
“Arguments.”
“Physical contact?”
“I did not see him strike her.”
The answer was careful enough to leave a door open.
Noland asked, “Did you see other physical contact?”
Celia’s face reddened. “Once, at a dinner. He held her arm while smiling at guests. She asked him to let go. He did not, not immediately.”
“When?”
“Last December.”
“Who else saw?”
“Everyone. No one understood what they were seeing.”
Mara thought of Livia’s wrist, the four dark marks.
Celia added, “Or we chose not to.”
Sebastian’s legal team moved quickly. They petitioned to modify the no-contact order so attorneys and a financial mediator could communicate with Livia about business matters. They provided photographs from earlier in the evening showing Livia holding a wineglass at dinner. They submitted a statement from a private physician who had previously prescribed her sleep medication, without claiming she had taken it that night.
The implications did more work than direct accusations.
They also delivered a letter to Rachel Sato offering Livia exclusive use of a Crowe-owned apartment, continued health coverage, and immediate access to personal funds if she signed a confidentiality agreement concerning “private marital disputes and proprietary business information.”
Rachel read the letter to Livia in the hotel suite.
Livia sat near the window wearing a loose black sweater and soft trousers Mara had packed. The bruise on her wrist had deepened to purple. Her hair hung down because raising both arms to pin it hurt her head.
“How much access?” she asked.
“Two hundred thousand immediately. Monthly support after that. The apartment is owned through a family trust.”
“So not mine.”
“No.”
“And confidentiality covers the foundation?”
“The wording is broad enough to try.”
Livia stared at traffic below. A bus remained trapped at an intersection while three drivers competed for the same lane.
Rachel set the letter on the table. “You don’t have to answer today.”
“They know the hotel cost is accumulating.”
“You can afford the hotel.”
“My personal account has seventy-eight thousand dollars.”
“That is not nothing.”
“It is if four law firms begin invoicing.”
Rachel leaned back. “The foundation can retain separate counsel. You can seek temporary support. There are marital assets, though access may be disputed. We have options.”
“Options that cost money.”
“Yes.”
Livia rubbed the inside of her uninjured palm with one finger. “He used to say lawyers were expensive because certainty was expensive.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“The phone first. The foundation records second. My silence generally.”
“And what do you want?”
The question should have been easy. Livia turned toward the window again.
“I want to sleep without hearing the door.”
Rachel did not fill the silence.
The hotel air system clicked on. Cold air moved the curtain away from the glass.
Livia said, “That isn’t a legal answer.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“I want the foundation protected. I want my mother’s name out of whatever he did. I want to understand how long it was happening.”
“And Sebastian?”
Livia’s fingers tightened around the sleeve covering her bruised wrist. “I want him to stop explaining me.”
Rachel nodded. “That one may require you to explain yourself.”
The first full statement took place two days later in a private room at the district attorney’s victim-services office. Livia asked that Elias not attend. Mara sat in the hallway because Livia wanted someone nearby who was neither family nor paid counsel.
The interview lasted three hours.
Livia described the loan guarantee, the hidden recording, and the argument. She described Sebastian taking the wineglass from her hand when she refused to unlock the phone. She described him catching her left wrist as she tried to leave. She remembered the pressure before she remembered the pain.
May you like
“He said we would solve it privately,” she told Noland. “I said private was where all our problems survived.”
“What happened next?”
