Chương 7
She told Hale.
“My husband’s watch was there.”
Hale asked what kind.
Claire described it.
Engraving.
Brand.
Leather-lined presentation case in Daniel’s closet.
Eleanor’s wedding gift.
Hale wrote without reacting.
Claire gave him Daniel’s name.
Address.
Company.
Voss’s name from the pharmacy receipt.
The white van.
The abandoned building.
The phone and wallet she had taken from the office.
Hale’s expression changed at the last two.
“You have them?”
Claire looked down.
In her rush, she had shoved both into the torn side of her dress.
She handed them over.
Hale put on gloves.
Brooks glanced toward the paramedics.
“You need a hospital.”
“I need my sister called.”
“We can do both.”
“My husband can access my accounts.”
“We’ll document that.”
“He changed my password.”
“We’ll document that too.”
“He’s going to know I got away.”
Hale and Brooks exchanged a look.
Claire caught it.
“He might run.”
Hale said, “Other units are going to your residence.”
“No.”
“Ma’am—”
“He won’t be there.”
“How do you know?”
Claire thought of Sunday lunch.
The engraved watch.
Eleanor.
Daniel’s habits.
When frightened, he went toward appearances.
He did not hide.
He performed normal.
“He’ll go to his mother’s.”
Brooks asked for the address.
Claire gave it.
Hale radioed it in.
Then Claire remembered something else.
“Don’t tell him I’m alive.”
Hale looked at her.
“Why?”
“He thinks I’m supposed to be dead tonight.”
The paramedic beside Claire stopped opening a blood-pressure cuff.
No one spoke for a moment.
Hale said, “We’re not running an operation off assumptions.”
“I heard them.”
“You heard your husband speaking?”
“I heard Voss say his name. I heard the payment argument. I have screenshots.”
“Where?”
“My email. If Daniel hasn’t gotten into that too.”
Hale crouched so they were closer to eye level.
“Claire, listen carefully. We need to get you medically cleared. Detectives will talk to you. Nobody here is going to call your husband and announce where you are.”
That was not the promise she had asked for.
It was enough.
At the hospital, a nurse cut off the cream dress.
Claire started crying.
Not during the examination.
Not when the doctor photographed the bruising around her eye.
Not when they cleaned the split in her lip.
She cried when the nurse cut the dress.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said.
Claire shook her head.
“It’s stupid.”
“It’s not.”
“I liked this dress.”
The nurse paused.
Claire laughed once through the tears.
That hurt her lip.
“I’m crying over a dress.”
“You’ve had a long day.”
“It was on sale.”
The nurse smiled carefully.
Claire covered her face with both hands.
For thirty seconds she cried hard enough that her shoulders shook.
Then it passed.
Not the fear.
Just the wave.
The nurse gave her a hospital gown.
Detectives arrived before midnight.
Claire told the story twice.
Once in pieces.
Once from the beginning.
She corrected herself when she mixed up whether Voss had brought the sandwich before or after the first phone call.
One detective, Luis Ortega, told her exact sequencing could be sorted later.
Claire said, “No. If I get something wrong now, Daniel’s lawyer will say I got everything wrong.”
Ortega studied her.
“He has a lawyer?”
“He has six.”
The other detective, Jenna Price, said, “Tonight he has us.”
Claire looked at her.
“That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
Price did not argue.
Good.
Claire trusted her slightly more.
Around one in the morning, Hale returned.
He carried an evidence bag.
Inside it was Daniel’s watch.
Claire stared at it.
“Where?”
“Parking lot. Near the back door of the building.”
Blood marked the bracelet.
Some hers.
Some perhaps Voss’s.
The face was cracked.
Claire leaned back against the hospital pillow.
She felt suddenly cold.
“That’s it.”
“We’ll verify.”
“It’s his.”
“We’ll verify,” Hale repeated.
Claire nodded.
Chain of custody.
Procedure.
The slow machinery of proving what she already knew.
She hated it.
She also needed it.
They recovered security footage from a gas station near the abandoned restaurant.
The white van appeared twice.
Once Friday afternoon.
Once Saturday evening.
The plates were stolen.
A traffic camera picked up the van heading east after Claire escaped.
Voss’s wallet contained his real driver’s license.
His second phone was locked.
The first phone was gone.
Detectives obtained emergency preservation requests for relevant records while they pursued warrants.
Nothing happened as quickly as television suggested.
Claire sat in a hospital room and watched minutes become hours.
At two forty, Rachel called.
The moment Claire heard her sister’s voice, she had to hand the phone to Brooks because she could not speak.
Rachel said her name several times.
“Claire? Claire?”
Brooks identified herself.
Rachel started asking questions at a speed Brooks could not answer.
Finally Claire took the phone back.
“I’m here.”
Rachel stopped.
Then:
“I’m going to kill him.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Please don’t make me explain to police why my sister threatened murder on speakerphone.”
Rachel made a broken sound that might have been laughter.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Are you safe?”
Claire looked at Brooks.
“For the moment.”
Rachel inhaled.
“I’m coming.”
“You have kids.”
“I also have a sister.”
“Rach.”
“Do not argue.”
Claire almost did.
Then she stopped.
“All right.”
At three thirty, Detective Ortega entered with information that shifted everything again.
Daniel’s vehicle had been located at Eleanor’s home.
He had arrived there shortly after seven.
He had not left.
Claire looked at the clock.
Sunday morning now.
Eleanor’s lunch was scheduled for one.
Daniel had gone to his mother’s almost eighteen hours early.
“He knows,” Claire said.
Ortega sat.
“Maybe.”
“He knows Voss failed.”
“We don’t know what Voss told him.”
“He went to Eleanor.”
“Could be because he was concerned you were missing.”
Claire laughed.
It sounded ugly.
Ortega allowed it.
“Can you arrest him?”
“Not yet.”
“There’s his watch.”
“At a crime scene.”
“There are messages.”
“We need the records.”
“There’s Voss.”
“Who we haven’t found.”
May you like
Claire stared at him.
“So he gets Sunday lunch.”
