Chương 6
“What happened to it?” he asked.
The advocate shifted in her seat. “We can give you privacy.”
“No,” Emily said. “Stay.”
Daniel remained by the door.
“Victor tore it when I tried to leave in January,” Emily said. “I told the dry cleaner it caught on a cabinet.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your whole body says something.”
He deliberately released his hands. He had curled them into fists without noticing.
Emily reached into the bag and found the gray robe. She pressed it against her face for a moment.
“You brought the ugly one.”
“It was on the list.”
“I thought you’d decide it was too embarrassing.”
“I considered burning it.”
The advocate smiled before she could stop herself.
Emily looked at Daniel. A faint sound came from her, half laugh and half pain. She held her ribs until it passed.
It was the first time he had heard her laugh in nearly two years.
Victor’s detention hearing took place five days after the rescue.
Emily did not attend. Daniel did, against his attorney’s advice.
Victor entered the courtroom wearing county-issued clothing and no expression. Without the black suit, he looked smaller, but not less composed. His attorney, Stephen Rusk, was a narrow man with silver glasses and a voice that made every accusation sound like a clerical correction.
Rusk argued that Victor had been assaulted by a decorated military officer with a documented history of violence. He described the factory as marital property, the ropes as part of a voluntary encounter, and Emily’s injuries as “subject to interpretation.”
Daniel’s attorney gripped his sleeve before he could stand.
The prosecutor played thirty seconds from Pike’s body camera.
Emily’s chair scraped. Victor’s glass shattered. Victor said, She belongs to me.
The room became still.
Rusk requested that the remainder be sealed until defense experts could examine it. The judge agreed to a protective order, then denied bond.
Victor turned before deputies led him away.
His eyes found Daniel.
There was no fear in them now. Only patience.
Outside the courthouse, reporters waited behind metal barriers. Someone shouted Daniel’s nickname. Another asked whether he had used government resources to settle a family dispute. A third asked whether Emily had participated in fraud against the Department of Defense.
Daniel kept walking.
At the curb, a man held up a phone and yelled, “Hey, Beast, how hard is it to beat an unarmed guy?”
Daniel stopped.
His attorney whispered, “Don’t.”
The man smiled behind the phone.
Daniel turned away.
By the time he reached his car, the video of him stopping had already been posted with the caption THE BEAST ALMOST CHARGES REPORTER.
He watched it once while sitting in the parking garage. The clip lasted six seconds. It ended before he turned away.
Emily called as he started the engine.
“Did you hit anyone?”
“No.”
“Claire says the internet thinks you did.”
“The internet is optimistic.”
There was a pause.
Then Emily said, “That was almost funny.”
“I’m under stress.”
“I can tell.”
He rested his head against the seat.
“How was the hearing?” she asked.
“Bond denied.”
“Did he look at you?”
“Yes.”
“He used to do that after arguments. Just look. Like he had all week and I had five minutes.”
Daniel watched cars move through the concrete levels below him.
“He can’t reach you,” he said.
Emily’s silence told him he had answered the wrong fear.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Courthouse garage.”
“You should come to Claire’s.”
“Do you want me there?”
“I need someone to fix her kitchen drawer.”
Daniel looked at the phone.
Emily added, “It’s been sticking for three years, and if I hear her complain about it again, I’m going back to the hospital.”
He drove to Claire’s.
Claire Dunning lived in a narrow brick house with a porch barely large enough for two chairs. She was an elementary school librarian with curly black hair, bright green glasses, and no apparent concern for Daniel’s reputation. She met him at the door holding a screwdriver.
“The drawer,” she said. “Your mission.”
Emily sat at the kitchen table in the gray robe, drinking tea from a mug that read PLEASE RETURN TO LIBRARY. Her bruises had begun fading from purple to yellow. A brace supported her right wrist.
Daniel crouched beside the cabinet.
The drawer stuck because a plastic grocery bag had fallen behind it.
He removed the bag.
“That’s it?” Claire asked.
“That’s it.”
“I’ve been living like this for three years.”
“You could have looked.”
“I’m a reader, not an engineer.”
Daniel slid the drawer in and out twice.
Emily watched him. “He’s going to tighten every screw now.”
“I am not.”
He found a loose screw and tightened it.
Claire set a plate of toast on the table. “I’m going upstairs. You two are unpleasant together.”
When she had gone, Daniel took the chair across from Emily.
She tore a piece of toast into smaller pieces but did not eat them.
“The prosecutor offered me a cooperation agreement,” she said.
“What does your lawyer think?”
“She says it’s preliminary. I would provide documents, passwords, testimony. They haven’t promised immunity.”
“Do you want immunity?”
“I want to tell the truth without going to prison.”
“That’s not unreasonable.”
“It may be.”
Daniel leaned back. “What aren’t you telling them?”
Emily looked at the toast.
He waited.
“I approved a payment after I knew about Raymond’s email.”
“To whom?”
“Nolan Price.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“Why?”
“Victor told me it was a severance agreement. He said Nolan had threatened to publish false claims about the company. I knew it didn’t make sense.”
“Did Victor threaten you?”
“Not directly.”
“Then why sign?”
She looked up. “Because I wanted the problem to disappear.”
Daniel felt anger rise, not at her exactly, and not cleanly enough to be useful.
“Did the payment have anything to do with Raymond?”
May you like
“I don’t know.”
“You approved two hundred thousand dollars to a man you knew nothing about.”
