Chapter 8: What Caleb Said
Caleb didn't fight the arrest.
The officers found him at his apartment sitting at his kitchen table with a glass of water in front of him and his phone face-down beside it.
He had not called an attorney.
He had not packed a bag.
He had simply been sitting there, waiting, the way a person waits when they have been waiting for something for a very long time.
Adrian drove to the precinct at 3 a.m.
Vera had told him he didn't need to come.
He came anyway.
They let him sit across from Caleb in a small room with a table between them.
Vera stood near the door.
Caleb looked older than he had two hours ago.
The rehearsed quality was g\*ne.
"She told me it was the brake line," Caleb said.
He didn't wait to be asked.
"Two days after the accident.
She called me and she said she needed me to understand what she had done so that I would understand why I couldn't say anything." His hands were flat on the table.
"She said Claire had been about to go to a journalist.
That everything was going to come out — the money, the affair, all of it.
She said she had panicked.
She said it was supposed to just — slow the car down.
That it wasn't supposed to—"
He stopped.
"She told you it was an accident," Adrian said.
"She told me it went further than she intended." Caleb looked at his brother.
"I don't know if that's true.
I've spent three years not knowing if that's true."
"And you said nothing."
"I was terrified.
I was complicit in the transfers.
I had been with her.
If it came out, I would go to prison regardless of what I knew about the car." He exhaled slowly.
"So I stayed quiet.
And then it got easier to stay quiet.
And then you started grieving and I told myself that telling you would only make it worse." He paused.
"That was a lie I told myself.
It was easier for me.
That's all it was."
Adrian looked at his brother.
He had known Caleb his whole life.
He had taught him to drive.
He had stood beside him at their father's funeral.
He had called him every Sunday for twenty years because their mother had asked them to and then because it had simply become the thing they did.
"Did you love her?" Adrian asked.
"Madison."
Caleb shook his head.
"No.
I don't think so.
I think I was flattered.
I think I was careless." He looked down at his hands.
"Claire deserved better than both of us."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"I'm going to tell them everything," Caleb said.
"Whatever they need.
I'm not going to make you fight for it."
"That's not for me," Adrian said.
"That's for Claire."
Caleb nodded.
His eyes were red.
"I know," he said.
"I know that."
Adrian stood.
Caleb looked up.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I know that doesn't—"
"It doesn't," Adrian said.
"But say it to her.
Find a way to say it to her."
He walked out of the room.
Vera fell into step beside him in the corridor.
"Gerald Fitch is cooperating fully," she said.
"He's already given us the account records, the subsidiary structure, the name of the bank contact.
He's trying to negotiate." She paused.
"He won't get much."
"Good."
"Madison's attorney arrived twenty minutes ago.
She's not talking." Vera glanced at him.
"She won't be able to stay quiet for long.
Roy Sutter's statement is detailed.
The cash envelope has a partial print.
And the burner phone Gerald used tonight has a six-month message history."
"How long?" Adrian asked.
"For Madison?
The DA is looking at vehicular h*micide with premeditation.
Financial fraud.
Obstruction.
Witness tampering." Vera paused.
"A long time, Mr.
Westwood."
Adrian stopped walking.
He stood in the corridor of the precinct at 3:40 in the morning, under fluorescent lights, in the suit he had worn to his own engagement party.
"She called me," he said.
"Claire.
An hour before she d\*ed.
And I told her we'd talk when I got home."
Vera was quiet.
"I've spent three years thinking that if I had just — stayed on the phone.
Or flown back a day earlier.
Or said something different." He stopped.
"But she already knew.
She had already decided.
She was going to tell me everything and she was going to be fine." He looked at the floor.
"She was the bravest person I knew and I didn't know it until tonight."
Vera put a hand briefly on his arm.
"Go home, Mr.
May you like
Westwood," she said.
"There's nothing more for you to do here tonight."
