Chương 9
Daniel recognized her immediately.
She had been there the day before.
She was the investigator who had asked him the same question three different ways.
Where were you?
What time did you arrive?
Who saw you there?
Rachel closed the folder in front of her.
“You look tired.”
Daniel sat down.
“That’s what happens when people accuse you of something you didn’t do.”
Rachel did not react.
That bothered him more than anger would have.
Anger meant emotion.
No emotion meant work.
“I didn’t accuse you,” she said.
“You didn’t have to.”
She leaned back.
“Daniel, yesterday you told us you arrived at the warehouse at 8:15 p.m.”
“Yes.”
“You said you went inside because you received a message from Thomas Avery asking you to meet him.”
“Yes.”
“You said you stayed for twenty minutes.”
“Yes.”
Rachel opened the folder again.
“Your phone records show the message was deleted thirty minutes after it was sent.”
Daniel stared at her.
“I didn’t delete it.”
“Someone did.”
“Then find out who.”
“We’re trying.”
The answer landed differently than he expected.
Not because it helped.
Because it sounded honest.
Rachel pulled out a printed image.
It was a photograph from the warehouse security system.
The quality was poor.
The person in the picture was mostly a shadow.
But Daniel knew the jacket.
He knew the shape of the shoulders.
He knew the way the person stood.
“That’s you,” Rachel said.
Daniel looked at the image.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked up.
“Because I remember being there.”
Rachel watched him carefully.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Daniel looked back at the picture.
The person in it had one hand raised toward the security camera.
A strange gesture.
Almost like a wave.
Almost like a warning.
“I wore that jacket,” Daniel said.
“That jacket was found in the warehouse.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
The room became smaller.
“What?”
“We found it near the back entrance.”
“I left it there.”
“Yes.”
“So why are we talking like that proves anything?”
Rachel did not answer immediately.
Daniel noticed the folder was thicker than yesterday.
More pages.
More evidence.
More pieces of his life turned into paper.
“Because there is something else,” she said.
He looked away.
Of course there was.
There was always something else.
Rachel placed another document on the table.
“This is a property transfer record.”
Daniel glanced at it.
He recognized the name immediately.
Thomas Avery.
His former business partner.
The man everyone believed Daniel had betrayed.
The man who had disappeared three days earlier.
The man whose warehouse Daniel had been found near.
Daniel pushed the paper back.
“I don’t understand.”
“Thomas transferred ownership of the warehouse to you six months ago.”
“No.”
“You signed it.”
“No.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Daniel.”
“I never signed that.”
“You’re saying the signature is fake?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is it your signature?”
The question stayed between them.
Daniel hated that he did not have an answer ready.
He hated that his own confusion looked like guilt.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Who would want to make it look like you owned that building?”
Daniel thought of every person who had a reason to hate him.
The list was shorter than he wanted.
Longer than he expected.
“Thomas,” he said.
Rachel nodded slightly.
“He would have a reason.”
“He had plenty.”
“Then why would he set you up?”
Daniel looked at the table.
Because Thomas had never done anything without a reason.
Because Thomas always planned three steps ahead.
Because six months earlier, when they ended their partnership, Thomas had smiled and said something Daniel had ignored.
You think losing money is the worst thing that can happen to a person.
It isn’t.
Daniel had thought it was another one of Thomas’s dramatic comments.
Now it sounded different.
Rachel folded her hands.
“Daniel, I need you to tell me something.”
“What?”
“Why did Thomas Avery contact you the night he disappeared?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
The truth was sitting there.
Not the whole truth.
Not the part that would explain everything.
Just the first piece.
“I can’t tell you that.”
Rachel’s expression changed slightly.
Not surprise.
Disappointment.
“Why?”
“Because if I tell you, you’ll think I had a reason to hurt him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Daniel looked at the floor.
The old answer would have been easy.
Yes or no.
Good people gave simple answers.
Real people rarely had them.
“I wanted to confront him,” Daniel said.
“About what?”
“About what he did to my company.”
Rachel waited.
Daniel rubbed his thumb against the side of his hand.
A habit he hated because his mother used to notice it whenever he lied as a teenager.
“You’re leaving something out,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who I can trust.”
Rachel looked at him for a long moment.
Then she closed the folder.
“That makes two of us.”
Daniel looked up.
For the first time since the investigation started, she looked tired too.
Not like someone trying to catch him.
Like someone trying to understand a problem that was becoming bigger than expected.
“I’m going to let you go home,” she said.
Daniel did not move.
“Just like that?”
“No.”
She slid a paper across the table.
“You’re not free from this.”
He read the words.
Temporary restriction.
Request for cooperation.
The language was polite.
The meaning was not.
“When will this end?” he asked.
Rachel gathered the papers.
“I don’t know.”
It was the most honest answer anyone had given him all day.
Outside the station, Daniel stood beside his car for almost a minute without unlocking it.
His phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen.
He stared at it.
The message contained only seven words.
You were never supposed to find the second file.
Daniel looked back at the station.
Then at the empty street.
May you like
Then at the message again.
For the first time since Thomas disappeared, Daniel understood that the question was not whether someone had framed him.
