Chương 6
“It doesn’t quote you.”
“It uses my body and my children to support your version.”
“Our version is that a violent former employee broke into our house.”
“Your version says attempted abduction. Police haven’t said that.”
“That distinction matters to his defense attorney, not to us.”
“It matters to Ruby.”
“Ruby should not be reading news coverage.”
“She has classmates.”
“We can control the school response.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“No, Evan. You can control a statement. You can pay a consultant. You cannot control what this is.”
“I am trying to keep us safe.”
“You keep saying that as if it answers everything.”
“What would you prefer? Silence? Let Wade define the story from jail?”
“I would prefer the truth.”
A pause.
“You don’t know the truth.”
“Neither do you, apparently.”
He hung up first.
Claire and the children stayed at Marisol’s for six days.
Evan moved into a hotel after the court prohibited him from entering his office while forensic work continued. The prohibition applied only to the office, but he said the press made the house unusable. Claire suspected he could not tolerate being in a place where one room no longer obeyed him.
The children returned to school on the third day.
Grace cried in the car and then denied crying.
Owen told his teacher that a robber had “a sword but technically not sharp.” By lunch, half the first grade believed Claire had broken the robber’s neck. Ruby said nothing. She began checking the lock on Marisol’s front door every night, then returning ten minutes later to check again.
A trauma therapist named Dr. Naomi Keller met with them individually.
After Ruby’s first session, she told Claire, “She asks obvious questions slowly.”
“That may be useful.”
“It’s annoying.”
“That may also be useful.”
Ruby almost smiled.
Claire resumed teaching two evening kickboxing classes at the gym because the mortgage, private-school tuition, and staff salaries did not become imaginary simply because Evan’s accounts were under review. She and Evan had money, but most of it was tied to companies, property, or trusts she had never studied. Her own checking account held less than she had once spent renovating the mansion’s mudroom.
At the gym, students tried not to stare at the bruise along her arm.
One woman hugged her without asking. Another said, “I would’ve killed him,” with such enthusiasm that Claire stepped back.
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m just saying, if it were my kids—”
“You don’t know.”
The woman flushed and busied herself wrapping her hands.
Claire taught footwork. She corrected posture, reminded people to keep their chins down, and stopped one man from throwing full power at a beginner. Her body moved automatically until someone dropped a metal water bottle near the lockers.
The clang sent her halfway into a defensive stance.
The room went silent.
Claire straightened.
“Bottle wins,” she said.
A few people laughed. The class resumed. Her hands shook for the next twenty minutes.
Detective Ortiz called the following morning. Wade Holloway had agreed to speak after his attorney negotiated the conditions of the interview. He admitted entering the house, threatening Hannah, grabbing Ruby, and wielding the baton. He denied intending to abduct or injure the children.
“He says he expected the house to be empty,” Ortiz told Claire.
“That part may be true.”
“He says someone texted him the family schedule.”
“Who?”
“The message came through an encrypted application from an account that no longer exists.”
“Did he save it?”
“His phone was recovered from a storm drain behind your property. It’s damaged, but not necessarily beyond examination.”
“Why throw it away?”
“He says he heard your car and panicked.”
“Why was he inside long enough for the children to come downstairs?”
“He couldn’t open the safe.”
“Did he say what was in it?”
“He said proof.”
“Of what?”
“That Evan Mercer and two business partners shifted money away from fire-safety work at Calder Court, falsified internal reports after concerns were raised, and arranged for Wade to absorb the criminal exposure.”
Claire sat on the edge of Marisol’s guest bed. Grace had left a stuffed rabbit beneath the pillow. One ear stuck out near Claire’s thigh.
“Is there proof?”
“We’re working on that.”
“Why would Evan keep it?”
“Wade claims the records were leverage against the other partners. He says each man kept enough material to prevent the others from cooperating against him.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It does.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe he believed the safe mattered enough to commit several felonies and terrorize three children. That isn’t the same thing.”
“What did the drives contain?”
“Encrypted archives. Financial records. Voice files. Photographs of construction documents. Some appear relevant.”
“Appear?”
“We need authentication.”
Claire picked up the stuffed rabbit and turned it over in her hands. The fabric beneath one arm had worn thin.
“Did Evan know Wade was coming?”
“We don’t know.”
“The disabled sensor.”
“We’re tracing access.”
“The schedule.”
“We’re tracing that too.”
“You keep saying we.”
“That is how investigations sound before they become answers.”
Claire disliked the sentence, perhaps because it was true.
Ortiz asked whether Evan had ever mentioned a man named Leonard Pryce.
Claire knew the name. Pryce had been Evan’s partner on several developments and had attended Christmas dinner once. He had given the children envelopes containing cash, which Evan later replaced with checks because he considered cash gifts tacky.
“Why?”
“His name appears throughout the Calder records. Another name is Thomas Bellamy, a former municipal inspector.”
“Former because of Calder?”
“Former because he retired.”
“When?”
“Four months after the fire.”
Claire looked at the rabbit’s stitched black eyes.
“Do you need anything from me?”
“Your full cooperation.”
“You have it.”
Ortiz was silent long enough to make the phrase feel less simple.
“That may become harder,” she said.
May you like
It did.
Two days later, Evan asked Claire to meet him at Philip Crane’s office. Crane’s firm occupied three floors of a glass tower downtown. The conference room overlooked the river and contained a table long enough to separate enemies politely.
