Chương 7
Evan was already seated. He wore a navy suit and a pale blue tie. His cuff was correct again.
Crane placed a folder in front of Claire.
“We need to discuss representation.”
“I have a lawyer.”
“You have the family estate attorney. Given the investigation, you need independent criminal counsel.”
“Am I suspected of something?”
“No,” Crane said. “But your interests and Evan’s may diverge.”
Evan looked out the window.
“May?”
Crane folded his hands.
“Investigators are reviewing jointly held assets, communications, travel records, and property access. Claire, you signed documents related to Mercer Development Holdings.”
“I signed what Evan and the accountants put in front of me.”
“That answer is understandable. It is not protective.”
Claire turned toward Evan.
“What did I sign?”
“Routine ownership documents.”
“Related to Calder?”
“Some entities held multiple properties.”
“What did I sign?”
Evan’s eyes met hers.
“There were capital authorizations. Refinancing approvals. Distributions.”
“Did money taken from the Calder work come to me?”
“No.”
Crane spoke at the same time.
“Possibly indirectly.”
The two men looked at each other.
Claire leaned back.
“Which one of you is lying?”
“Nobody is lying,” Crane said.
“That sentence should be printed over the elevators.”
Evan exhaled.
“The company distributed income. You received family distributions. That does not mean you knew the source of every dollar.”
“Did you?”
Crane raised a hand.
“I advise against answering that.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
Evan’s expression hardened.
“The fire was not caused by missing money.”
“Then what caused it?”
“An electrical fault in a tenant’s unit.”
“Why did three people die?”
“The stairwell door failed to close. The alarms were delayed. There were multiple contractor errors.”
“Were you warned before the fire?”
Crane said, “Evan.”
Claire did not look away.
“Were you?”
Evan picked up a water glass, then set it down untouched.
“There were reports on many issues. Large projects generate reports.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Some fire-door hardware was listed for replacement.”
“Was it replaced?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wade says money was moved away from safety work.”
“Wade entered our home with a weapon.”
“Yes.”
“He is not a whistleblower. He is a criminal trying to improve his position.”
“He can be both.”
Evan stared at her.
“You have spent ten years benefiting from the life I built, and now, after one terrifying night, you’re prepared to believe the man who threatened our children?”
Claire looked down at her hands. Her wedding ring reflected the conference-room lights.
“I believe the man who threatened our children threatened our children,” she said. “I also believe my husband hid evidence in a wall.”
“The evidence was protected legal material.”
“Then why didn’t your lawyer know how to describe it?”
Crane’s mouth flattened.
Evan pushed back from the table.
“You wanted the house.”
Claire looked up.
“What?”
“The school. The travel. The kitchen you rebuilt twice because the stone looked yellow in morning light. You wanted all of it.”
Shame arrived before anger because parts of the accusation were true. She had wanted the house. She had complained about the stone. She had known Evan worked late and made ugly compromises and called them burdens she was fortunate not to carry.
She had accepted not knowing as one of the services wealth provided.
“I did,” she said.
Evan seemed unprepared for agreement.
“I wanted it. That doesn’t make whatever you did mine.”
“You signed.”
“Then show me.”
Crane slid the folder closer.
The papers contained corporate diagrams, trust structures, and transaction summaries. Claire recognized her signature in six places. One document authorized the transfer of a property interest into a family trust eighteen days after the Calder fire. Another approved a distribution from an entity that had received insurance proceeds.
The amount beside her name was $480,000.
She remembered the week. Evan had placed a stack of signature tabs on the kitchen counter while Owen was sick with the flu. Claire had signed between checking his temperature and changing a load of sheets. Two months later, they began renovating the pool house.
She closed the folder.
“Was that money from Calder?”
Evan said, “It was a lawful distribution.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Crane intervened.
“The source of funds is precisely the kind of issue separate counsel should review before you make further statements.”
Claire stood.
“Send everything to the attorney whose name is on the card you gave me.”
“Claire,” Evan said.
She gathered the documents.
“I’m taking these.”
“They are privileged,” Crane said.
“They concern my ownership and my signature.”
He placed a hand on the folder.
For one quiet second, neither of them moved.
Then Evan said, “Let her take it.”
Crane released the papers.
In the elevator, Claire pressed the button for the lobby and watched the numbers descend. On the twenty-first floor, a woman entered carrying a vase of white flowers. She glanced at Claire’s folder, then at her training shoes, and smiled apologetically as though she had interrupted something.
The flowers smelled like a funeral home.
At Marisol’s house, Claire found Ruby sitting on the front steps without a coat.
“You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Claire sat beside her. Traffic moved at the end of the street. Someone two houses down dragged a trash bin up a driveway, its plastic wheels rattling over every seam.
Ruby stared ahead.
“Dad came to school.”
“When?”
“Today. He talked to the principal.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“He tried.”
“What did he say?”
“That reporters might ask questions and I should tell a teacher.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“He said I shouldn’t talk about what happened because Wade’s lawyers could twist it.”
Claire closed her eyes briefly.
“What did you say?”
“I said Wade’s name.”
“To whom?”
“Dad.”
Claire waited.
Ruby rubbed her bare hands together.
“He keeps calling him the intruder. I said his name was Wade. Dad got mad.”
“How mad?”
“Quiet mad.”
Claire knew the category.
May you like
“He said the man forfeited the right to be treated like someone we knew.”
“What do you think?”
