Chương 2
“I didn’t come for them.”
“Don’t talk.”
“I didn’t know they’d be here.”
Claire shifted to put both knees beneath her. Every muscle in her body wanted to stand. Training told her not to rise unnecessarily, not while three children clung to her and the weapon remained six feet away.
“Police are coming.”
“I know.”
His mouth twisted. He looked toward the dark opening of Evan’s office.
“Ask your husband what he keeps in the wall.”
Then he lowered his head to the marble and closed his eyes.
The first sirens reached the street less than four minutes later, but time had changed shape by then. Claire heard each of Owen’s breaths separately. She noticed a loose thread on Grace’s cuff. Ruby’s fingers had buried themselves in the fitted dark olive fabric over Claire’s ribs and would not let go.
Blue light began to pulse through the tall arched windows. It spread across the marble in cold waves, touching the baton, Wade’s black shoe, the silver band on Claire’s left hand.
The dispatcher told her officers were outside.
A voice boomed through the closed doors, ordering everyone in the foyer to remain still.
Claire answered loudly. She gave her name and described where each person was. She told the children that police would enter with weapons drawn and that nobody should make sudden movements.
“You too?” Owen whispered.
“Me too.”
The doors opened.
For several seconds the foyer filled with shouted commands, heavy footsteps, black uniforms, and the sharp white glare of flashlights. Claire raised both hands where officers could see them. Ruby tried to raise hers too, then remembered she was holding Grace and let one arm drop. An officer pulled Wade’s arms behind him and secured his wrists. Another kicked the baton farther away before photographing it where it had stopped.
Wade did not resist.
As they rolled him onto his knees, he looked once at Claire.
There was no apology in his face.
There was something worse: expectation.
A female officer with a calm, flat voice led Claire and the children into the formal living room. The room had cream furniture nobody used, two blue chairs Evan had chosen because an interior designer told him they made the room feel less staged, and a limestone fireplace with no ash in it. Grace stared at the fireplace as if it were the strangest thing she had ever seen.
Paramedics checked all four of them.
Claire had a rising bruise along her left forearm. Ruby’s wrist was marked but not injured. Grace had bitten the inside of her cheek. Owen could not answer the paramedic’s questions until Claire repeated them, and then he became irritated when the man tried to look into his ears.
“My ears weren’t attacked,” he said.
The paramedic paused.
“No, sir.”
Ruby made a small sound that might have been a laugh. It vanished immediately, but Claire felt it pass through the children like a change in temperature.
Wade was taken out through the front doors on a stretcher, though he was sitting upright and speaking. Claire could not hear what he said. One officer carried the baton inside a long evidence bag. Another placed Claire’s travel bag on the living-room rug after checking it, leaving the zipper open.
Her phone vibrated in her hand.
Evan.
She stared at his name until the call stopped.
It rang again.
Detective Lena Ortiz arrived before Claire answered it. Ortiz was in her mid-forties, with dark hair pinned low at her neck and a charcoal blazer creased at one elbow. She did not offer Claire a soothing smile. Claire appreciated that immediately.
“I need to ask you some questions while it’s fresh,” Ortiz said. “But your children come first. Is there an adult you trust who can be with them?”
“My husband is in Chicago.”
“We’ve notified him.”
Claire looked at her phone.
“He knows.”
“Is there anyone local?”
Claire called Marisol Vega, who lived twelve minutes away and had been Ruby’s godmother before any of them understood how much work that title could involve. Marisol answered on the first ring.
“Claire?”
“There was someone in the house.”
A silence, then the sound of sheets moving.
“Are the kids alive?”
The bluntness steadied Claire.
“Yes.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
“Police are here.”
“Good. I’m still coming.”
Marisol arrived in slippers, jeans, and a winter coat thrown over a sleep shirt, though it was only October. She knelt in front of the children without touching them.
“I’m going to sit right here,” she said. “You can come to me or not. Both are allowed.”
Grace went to her at once. Owen stayed pressed to Claire. Ruby folded her arms and looked toward the foyer.
Detective Ortiz sat across from Claire with a small recorder on the table between them. Another detective, Mark Bell, stood near the doorway taking notes. He was younger, red-haired, and kept looking at Claire’s bare knees as if training shorts were an unusual choice for a crime victim.
Ortiz asked Claire to begin with the moment she arrived.
Claire described parking in the circular drive after a delayed flight from Denver. She had been away for four nights at a coaching certification seminar. Evan had planned to be home with the children, but a business meeting had taken him to Chicago that afternoon. Their usual sitter, Hannah, was supposed to remain until Claire returned.
“Hannah wasn’t here,” Ortiz said.
“No.”
“When did you last speak to her?”
“From the airport. Around nine thirty.”
“What did she say?”
“That the children were upstairs and she’d wait.”
“Did she sound upset?”
“No.”
“What time did you reach the house?”
“Ten eighteen. Maybe ten nineteen.”
“You didn’t see another vehicle?”
“No. Mine was the only one in front.”
“Any sign of forced entry?”
“Not from where I came in.”
“You used the front door?”
“The right door. My code worked.”
Ortiz glanced toward Bell.
“You recognized Mr. Holloway.”
“After a few seconds.”
May you like
“How?”
“He worked with my husband.”
