Chương 6
“That was fast.”
“They had draft language prepared.”
“For what?”
“For some version of this.”
Claire stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair, usually straight and disciplined, had dried in uneven auburn strands against her face. A faint bruise darkened her hip.
“Did you know they were preparing a statement?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
Rebecca was silent.
“That’s the problem,” Claire said.
“The problem is larger than whether you like me.”
“I don’t know you well enough to dislike you.”
“You fired me an hour ago.”
“You said I couldn’t.”
“Correct.”
Someone knocked on the motel door.
Claire froze.
Owen’s voice came through. “It’s me. Detective Ortiz is here.”
Claire opened the bathroom door. Maisie had fallen asleep sideways across the bed, one hand still holding the crust of her sandwich.
Ortiz entered alone.
She looked around the room, taking in the paper cups, the security latch, the child asleep in her dress.
“Your attorney approved this?”
“Apparently she isn’t my attorney.”
“Convenient distinction?”
“Not today.”
Ortiz took a chair near the window.
“The recorder contains eleven audio files.”
Claire sat on the edge of the other bed.
“How many matter?”
“We don’t know yet. Several are household noise. One is your daughter singing. One includes you telling her not to tell anyone about the recorder.”
Claire felt her stomach drop.
Ortiz watched her.
“What exactly did you say?”
“That it was our secret.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want Eleanor to find it.”
“You made your child responsible for concealing evidence.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You made several.”
Claire looked at Maisie.
“Yes.”
Ortiz’s expression softened only slightly.
“The relevant recording appears to have been created yesterday at three fourteen in the afternoon. Your daughter and the rabbit were not in the room at the time.”
“Where was it?”
“Under a sofa in the morning room. Nora says Maisie left it there after breakfast.”
Claire remembered searching for the toy before bedtime. Vanessa had brought it back, claiming she found it in the conservatory.
“Who was speaking?”
“Forensic analysis will take time, but the voices sound like Eleanor and Vanessa. The conversation lasts six minutes and forty-three seconds.”
“What do they say?”
Ortiz opened her notebook.
“They discuss a scheduled family photograph near the east conservatory stairs. They discuss moving a planter to narrow the walkway. They discuss your daughter’s tendency to pull away when someone adjusts her hair. They discuss a loose railing.”
Claire felt cold despite the heater ticking beneath the window.
“And the accident?”
“The plan, as described, was for your daughter to stumble while you were looking at your phone. A photographer would capture the fall. Eleanor would use the image and witness statements in the guardianship hearing.”
“A fall down stone steps.”
“Vanessa said there were only three.”
“Three can kill a child.”
“I know.”
“Did Eleanor?”
“She said the words you heard.”
Claire pressed both hands over her mouth.
Ortiz waited.
“Why did she grab Maisie today?” Claire asked.
“According to Eleanor, she saw the recorder seam and believed the toy contained a battery that might be dangerous.”
“That’s her statement?”
“Yes.”
“And Vanessa?”
“Vanessa says Eleanor believed the child was reaching for a knife.”
“They can’t even agree.”
“No.”
“That helps, doesn’t it?”
“It creates a contradiction.”
“Which helps.”
“It may.”
Claire hated the detective’s refusal to hand her certainty.
Ortiz closed the notebook.
“There’s more.”
Claire lowered her hands.
“Someone physically altered the east railing.”
“I told you.”
“A mounting bolt was replaced with one that had been filed down. It would hold under light pressure and fail under more weight.”
“Who did it?”
“We found a partial print, but the area was handled by staff. We’re collecting elimination prints.”
“Vanessa?”
“We don’t know.”
“Eleanor?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who moved the allergy medication?”
“We don’t know.”
Claire stood and crossed to the window. The miniature golf course outside had a fiberglass castle with one turret missing. Rainwater filled the shallow moat around it, though there had been no rain that day.
“Will you arrest them?”
“Not tonight.”
Claire turned.
Ortiz added, “We are pursuing warrants. They have counsel. Neither is allowed to contact you or Maisie directly under the temporary protective order signed an hour ago.”
“Eleanor owns half the county.”
“She owns property. She does not own the county.”
“You haven’t met the county.”
“I grew up here.”
The answer surprised Claire.
Ortiz put away the notebook.
“I also need your phone.”
“For how long?”
“As long as the warrant permits.”
“I need it.”
“We’ll copy the data and return it.”
“It has my daughter’s medical portal, the guardianship filings, messages from my sister—”
“And messages from your dead husband’s number, communications with Marcus, purchases related to the recorder, and any planning with the trust.”
Claire glanced toward Maisie.
“Can I delete personal photographs?”
“No.”
“Can I look through them first?”
“No.”
“What if there are things that have nothing to do with this?”
“There will be.”
Claire held the phone.
After Daniel died, she had begun photographing ordinary objects he would never see again. A bowl of bruised peaches. Maisie’s first attempt to write her name. A stain on the living room ceiling shaped like a continent. She had not shown anyone the folder. Some nights she opened it and scrolled until the battery warning appeared.
She handed the phone to Ortiz.
The absence in her palm felt immediate.
The next morning, Maisie woke before dawn and asked whether Grandma knew where they were.
Claire told her no.
It was the first reassuring lie of the day.
By eight, photographers had found the motel. Owen covered the connecting door’s peephole with a bandage wrapper and arranged for them to leave through the laundry room. The motel manager objected until he saw the cameras gathering near the office. Then he asked Claire for a photograph.
“No,” she said.
“I was only asking because my wife follows the company.”
“No.”
May you like
“She thinks you’re brave.”
Claire looked at him.
