Chapter 7: The Questioning
Margaret arrived at the precinct at nine o'clock exactly.
She wore a charcoal wool coat and low heels.
Her hair was set.
She looked like a woman attending a formal lunch, not a police interview.
Gerald Fitch walked beside her, briefcase in hand, already talking in a low voice that she appeared to be ignoring.
Ethan and Ava were already inside, seated in a waiting area down the hall from the interview room.
Lena sat beside Ava, her hands folded, her statement already submitted in writing the evening before.
Ava saw Margaret the moment she came through the door.
Margaret saw Ava.
Neither of them spoke.
But Margaret's step slowed — just for a moment, just barely — before Fitch touched her elbow and guided her forward.
Detective Harlow met them at the interview room door.
"Mrs.
Calloway." He gestured inside.
"Thank you for coming in."
"I wasn't given much of a choice," Margaret said.
"No," Harlow agreed pleasantly.
"You weren't."
The door closed.
Ethan looked at Ava.
"You okay?"
"Yes." She was watching the closed door.
"She slowed down when she saw me."
"I noticed."
"She didn't expect me to be here." Ava turned to look at him.
"She expected me to still be confused.
Still doubting myself." A pause.
"She doesn't know yet how much has come back."
The interview lasted two hours and seventeen minutes.
Ethan knew this because he watched the clock on the wall across from him without meaning to, marking each quarter-hour the way you mark distance when you're very tired and the road is very long.
When Harlow came out, he walked directly to them.
"She denied everything," he said.
"The crash, the sedatives, the forged documents, the account in your name.
All of it."
"Of course she did," Ethan said.
"Her attorney presented an alternative account.
That the vitamins were a supplement regimen she'd researched for Ava's recovery.
That the legal documents were a legitimate estate-planning measure she'd prepared for your benefit.
That Ray Coulter is a troubled man with a history of fabrication." Harlow paused.
"It was a well-prepared alternative account."
Ava looked at him steadily.
"But?"
"But Coulter's phone records match the burner number.
The pharmacy confirmed the prepaid card purchase on camera.
The account in Ethan's name has her fingerprints on the original paperwork — literally, from the pen she used." Harlow looked at Ava.
"And the toxicology report came back this morning."
The hallway was very quiet.
"The compound in your system is consistent with long-term low-dose sedative administration," Harlow said.
"It's not a standard prescription.
It's not available over the counter.
It requires a specific source." He paused.
"We've traced the source."
"Who?" Ethan asked.
"A private physician your mother has used for fifteen years.
He's being interviewed this afternoon." Harlow looked at his notes.
"He's already retained separate counsel from Fitch."
Fitch, Ethan thought.
Fitch, who was in that room with her right now, who had been her attorney for two decades, who had prepared the documents and made the calls and carried the briefcase.
"Harlow," Ethan said.
"Fitch.
How much did he know?"
Harlow looked at him for a moment.
"That," he said carefully, "is one of the things we're working to establish."
The interview room door opened.
Margaret came out first.
Fitch was a step behind her, and for the first time since this had all begun, he looked like a man who was no longer sure of the ground beneath him.
Margaret walked past Ethan without looking at him.
She stopped when she reached Ava.
For a moment she simply stood there, looking down at the woman in the wheelchair.
"You think you've won something," she said quietly.
Ava looked up at her.
"I think I've survived something," she said.
"That's enough for now."
Margaret's expression didn't change.
But her eyes moved — just briefly — to Ethan.
And in them was something that might have been, in another woman, the beginning of understanding what she had destroyed.
Then she walked out.
Fitch followed without a word.
Lena let out a long, slow breath.
"Is it over?" she asked.
"Not yet," Harlow said.
"But it's close."
He looked at Ava.
"The DA will be in touch by end of week.
Given the toxicology results and Coulter's cooperation, I expect formal charges within ten days." He paused.
"Mrs.
Calloway — Ava — I want you to know that what you endured over the past two years was deliberate, sustained, and serious.
The law takes that seriously.
We take that seriously."
Ava nodded.
She didn't cry.
May you like
She had been saving that for somewhere quieter.
But her hand found Ethan's, and she held it, and that was enough for the hallway of a police precinct on a gray Tuesday morning.
