Chương 4
When Ortiz asked about the cup, Claire described what she had observed and what she had inferred. She kept the two separate.
“Reed says you were interviewing for a job,” Ortiz said.
“That’s correct.”
“Convenient first day.”
“I haven’t accepted.”
“You always bring down board members at interviews?”
“Only when they lead with the throat.”
Ortiz’s mouth moved, but she kept the laugh inside.
The detective turned her notebook around and showed Claire a photograph of Nolan’s phone on an evidence table. The screen displayed a message received at eight fifty-eight from a blocked relay number.
The woman in champagne thinks you’re weak. Ask Reed what she cost him.
“Did he reply?” Claire asked.
“Not on the visible thread. We’ll need a warrant before we dig.”
“Whoever sent it described my dress.”
“Plenty of people could see your dress.”
“Only after I arrived.”
Ortiz nodded. “That occurred to me too.”
“Was there anything else on the lock screen?”
“A missed call at nine fourteen. Same relay service.”
Two minutes after the attack.
Claire looked through the glass wall toward the corridor. Ethan stood outside, speaking to Reed’s general counsel. Reed was gone.
“Where is he?” Claire asked.
“Your almost-employer?”
“Yes.”
“Left through the garage ten minutes ago.”
Claire stood so quickly that the chair legs scraped the tile.
Ortiz lifted one hand. “His people said he was going home.”
“Which people?”
“The man in the gray suit.”
Claire opened the office door.
Ethan ended his call. “We’re not finished with the police.”
“Where did Reed go?”
“Home.”
“With whom?”
“His driver and two protection officers.”
“Names?”
Ethan’s surprise hardened into irritation. “I have been managing his life for seven years. You have been managing it for less than an hour.”
“And in that hour someone tried to put something in his cup.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Where did he go?”
“East Sixty-Ninth.”
“Exact address.”
“No.”
Claire stepped close enough that he had to decide whether to retreat. He did not.
“You agreed to access,” she said.
“He agreed. I am required to use judgment.”
“Your judgment left Nolan Voss in that ballroom.”
His expression changed.
Claire regretted the sentence before the silence finished forming, but regret did not erase it.
Ethan spoke quietly. “Mr. Reed has two officers who have protected him for years.”
“Who reports to them?”
“They currently report to me.”
“Because Heller resigned?”
“Yes.”
“Did Heller hire them?”
“Yes.”
“Did Heller design the route out of the hotel?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Claire held out her hand. “Address.”
Ethan did not move.
Detective Ortiz appeared in the doorway behind Claire. “You two can continue measuring authority after I finish taking statements.”
Claire looked at Ethan. “Call Reed. Tell him not to eat or drink anything that was in the house before he arrived. Tell the officers to keep him in the vehicle until we verify the property is secure.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You are not in charge,” he said.
“No. That’s why I’m asking you to do it.”
The distinction reached him. He took out his phone.
Reed answered on the second ring.
Ethan delivered Claire’s warning in a neutral voice. He listened, looked at her, then turned on the speaker.
“I am already inside,” Reed said.
“Who cleared the house?” Claire asked.
“My officers.”
“Did they enter before you?”
“Yes.”
“Did the alarm show any recent access?”
A pause. “The house manager arrived at seven this morning and left at six.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Check the kitchen sink, trash, tea canister, refrigerator seals, and interior camera log before you touch anything.”
“I don’t have interior cameras.”
“That is either reassuring or inconvenient.”
“I value privacy.”
“People who know that will value it too.”
Reed was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “Ethan, bring her.”
The townhouse on East Sixty-Ninth Street had limestone steps, black iron railings, and the kind of polished brass that suggested somebody wiped fingerprints from it twice a day. At eleven twenty, a line of television vans already waited at the corner.
Claire remained in the back of Ethan’s sedan until he entered the garage beneath the house.
Her phone vibrated continuously in her clutch.
One text came from her sister, June.
Please tell me that isn’t you.
A second arrived before Claire could answer.
Actually don’t. Mom already knows.
Claire put the phone facedown on her knee.
Ethan drove with both hands at ten and two, as if anger had made him more obedient to old lessons.
“I shouldn’t have said that about your judgment,” Claire told him.
His eyes stayed on the ramp ahead.
“No,” he said. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I was trying to make you act quickly.”
“You succeeded.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No.”
The garage door closed behind them. Fluorescent lights reflected on the sedan’s roof.
Claire waited for him to say something else.
He did not.
Inside, Reed’s home was less opulent than the ballroom and more expensive in ways Claire could not name. Pale walls held large abstract canvases. The furniture was low, spare, and arranged around silence rather than comfort. No family photographs occupied the entry table. A bowl near the door contained three sets of keys and a roll of peppermint candy.
Two protection officers waited in the kitchen.
One was a woman in her forties named Michelle Duvall. The other, Peter Larkin, had the thick neck and softened middle of a former college athlete. Both wore dark suits. Both disliked Claire immediately.
Duvall had already checked the locks, pantry, refrigerator, and trash. Larkin was reviewing the exterior access log on a tablet.
“No unusual entries,” he said. “No alarms.”
“Who can bypass the alarms without creating an entry?” Claire asked.
“No one.”
“Who installed the system?”
“Grant Heller selected the contractor.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Larkin’s mouth compressed.
Duvall answered. “A company called Sentinel Residential.”
“Does Grant have administrative access?”
“Not since his resignation.”
“Who removed it?”
“I did.”
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“Did you change the master credentials or disable his profile?”
“Disabled his profile.”
