Chương 11
“Why?”
“He knew what Wade had tried to take. He wanted the backup set.”
“You had another set in the bedroom.”
“Yes.”
“You gave it to him.”
“I traded it.”
“For what?”
“His promise to keep the company functioning and protect the family trusts.”
Claire stared at him.
“After our children were threatened because of those records, you gave copies to the man who sent Wade into the house.”
“I didn’t know Leonard sent him then.”
“You suspected.”
“I suspected everyone.”
“What did the backup contain?”
“Mostly the same material. Some additional recordings.”
“Of Pryce?”
“And me.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said he has it.”
“He took it. He may have destroyed it.”
“Did you tell investigators?”
“No.”
“Why are you telling me?”
Evan looked tired. Not performatively tired, not softened for sympathy. His face seemed to have lost the private support that held it in familiar shapes.
“Because Leonard called me an hour ago. He said he is leaving the country. He wants money wired through an account in the Caymans.”
“Blackmail.”
“Yes.”
“Did you agree?”
“I told him I needed time.”
“Did you call Ortiz?”
“I called Crane.”
“Of course.”
“He said any communication could be a trap.”
“It probably is.”
“He also said paying could be obstruction.”
“It probably is.”
Evan rubbed his forehead.
“I can get him to meet me.”
“No.”
“If he brings the drive—”
“No.”
“This may be the only chance.”
“You are not fixing this with another private deal.”
“What would you have me do? Let him disappear with evidence that makes me look worse than the records already seized?”
“You mean evidence that shows what you did.”
“It includes context.”
Claire laughed then, a harsh, exhausted sound.
“People died inside your context.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we standing here instead of calling the detective?”
“Because once I call, I lose control.”
The honesty of it silenced her.
Evan looked around the foyer. The house had been designed to make everyone entering it feel the owner’s certainty. Black doors. White marble. Twin staircases meeting above the center. Nothing accidental.
“I have been losing control for weeks,” he said. “The board. The accounts. The children. You.”
“You never had control of us.”
“I know that now.”
“No. You know you can’t enforce it now.”
He flinched.
Claire took out her phone.
“Don’t,” he said.
She held it at her side.
“Call Ortiz yourself.”
“I need terms.”
“You need courage.”
“Don’t turn this into a training lesson.”
“It isn’t. In training, people agree to the rules.”
He walked closer.
Claire’s body reacted before her mind did. Her weight shifted. One foot angled. Her free hand rose slightly.
Evan saw.
He stopped.
The pain on his face was immediate and unguarded.
“You think I would hurt you?”
“I didn’t think Wade would hurt Ruby when he fixed her music box.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” Claire said. “It isn’t.”
They stood several feet apart in the same place where Wade had swung the baton.
Evan lowered his hands.
“If I call, they will arrest me.”
“Maybe.”
“The children will watch.”
“Not tonight.”
“They’ll know.”
“They already know something is wrong.”
“I can still protect them from the worst of it.”
“You can protect yourself from seeing their reaction.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
Claire unlocked her phone.
Evan looked toward the black doors. For one second she thought he might leave.
Instead he sat on the bottom stair.
Rainwater from his sweater dotted the marble. He placed both hands between his knees and stared at the floor.
“Give me the phone,” he said.
Claire did not move closer.
“Tell me the number.”
She read it aloud.
Evan called Detective Ortiz.
He told her about Pryce’s demand, the missing backup drive, and the proposed meeting. His voice shook only once, when Ortiz asked why he had concealed the second archive.
“Because it implicated me,” he said.
After the call, they waited.
No rescuers burst through the doors. No final confession purified anything. Claire sat on the opposite staircase while Evan remained where he was. The rain weakened.
At one point he said, “The kitchen stone was yellow.”
Claire looked at him.
“In morning light,” he added. “You were right.”
She almost hated him for making her remember the argument. They had stood barefoot in the unfinished kitchen while Ruby, then six, drew faces in construction dust. Evan had insisted the imported stone was perfect. Claire had cried from exhaustion, then laughed because he offered to replace an entire island rather than admit the color was wrong.
“It was very yellow,” she said.
They sat without speaking until headlights filled the windows.
Ortiz entered with two detectives. She listened to Evan repeat the account, then took his phone and instructed him not to contact Pryce again without direction. She did not arrest him that night.
She did, however, ask him to surrender his passport.
Claire watched him remove it from his wallet.
That small blue booklet looked lighter than the damage attached to it.
Working with investigators, Evan arranged to meet Pryce in a private room at a downtown club. Pryce did not bring the drive. He brought instructions for payment and assurances that the original had been placed beyond anyone’s reach.
The meeting was recorded under legal supervision.
Pryce spoke freely enough to confirm his role in sending Wade to the mansion. He believed Wade would be arrested before opening the safe. He had expected the commotion to let Evan remove the records or, failing that, create grounds to attack the evidence as contaminated by a criminal intrusion.
When Evan asked why Pryce had risked the children being present, Pryce replied, “They weren’t supposed to be there.”
The same sentence Wade had used.
May you like
Pryce was arrested as he left the club.
The missing drive was later recovered from a storage unit rented through one of his assistants. It contained records more damaging than the first archive, including a call made two days after the Calder fire.
