Chapter 8: The Last Move They Made
Hale took the phone from Nora's hand without being asked.
"Same number as the one that sent the photograph?" I said.
"No." He was already on his radio.
"Different number.
We'll trace it." He looked at Nora.
"Did anyone know you were coming here today?
Anyone outside of Ruth?"
"No one," Nora said.
"I didn't tell anyone."
"Then someone followed you." He stood up.
"I'm putting a car outside the hospital where Lily is, and one outside your hotel.
Neither of you goes anywhere alone until we've traced this.
Understood?"
We both nodded.
He left the room.
Nora and I sat across from each other in the quiet.
"Vanessa," I said.
"It has to be Vanessa.
She's the only one not fully detained."
"She's in questioning."
"Questioning isn't custody.
She could have sent it before she went in.
Or had someone send it for her." I thought about Vanessa in that doorway, smiling.
*Check the waste.* "She's been doing my parents' work for years.
She's not going to stop because they're in a room with a detective."
Nora looked at the table.
Then she looked up.
"There's something else I didn't play for Hale yet," she said.
"I was going to, but then the message came and—" She reached into the bag again.
"Six weeks ago, I recorded a conversation between Vanessa and your father.
Not about Lily.
About you."
She set a small recorder on the table and pressed play.
Vanessa's voice: *If Claire ever finds out about the adoption — either of them — we lose everything.
The house, the accounts, all of it.
She could contest the estate.*
My father: *She won't find out.*
Vanessa: *You said that about Nora.*
A pause.
My father: *This is different.
Claire trusts us.*
Vanessa: *She trusts you.
She barely tolerates me.
And if she finds Nora—* A sound.
A chair shifting.
*Then we make sure Nora isn't findable.*
I stared at the recorder.
*We make sure Nora isn't findable.*
"She was going to do something to you," I said.
"Before any of this happened."
"I think so," Nora said quietly.
"I think Lily's birthday was meant to be a warning to you.
To make you afraid enough to stay quiet.
And if that hadn't worked—"
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to.
I thought about the estate.
The house I had grown up in.
The accounts I had never thought much about because my parents had always seemed comfortable without being extraordinary.
"How much is there?" I said.
"Do you know?"
"Ruth knew some of it.
My investigator found the rest." Nora folded her hands on the table.
"Your father has been moving money for twenty years.
Accounts in three different states.
Some in your name without your knowledge.
Some in names that don't belong to anyone real." She met my eyes.
"Claire, there's a significant amount.
Enough that if either of us contested the estate or filed a civil claim — it would matter.
It would matter a great deal."
The door opened.
Hale came back in.
"Vanessa's attorney just requested she be released pending further investigation," he said.
"The request was denied.
She's being held." He set a piece of paper on the table.
"The message came from a burner phone purchased at a gas station two miles from here, forty minutes before Nora arrived.
We have the purchase on camera." He looked at me.
"It was your father.
He made the purchase this morning before we arrived at the house.
He had the phone on him when we detained him.
He sent the message from the back of the patrol car."
The room was very quiet.
"He knew," I said.
"He knew Nora was coming.
He knew before we did."
"He had a tracker on Nora's car," Hale said.
"We found it during the vehicle sweep.
He's been tracking her movements for at least three months."
Nora's face went very still.
"Three months," she said.
"Yes."
She looked at me.
And in her expression I saw something I recognized completely — the particular exhaustion of someone who has been afraid for a long time without being able to say so out loud.
I reached across the table and put my hand over hers.
She didn't pull away.
"It's done," I said.
"He can't reach you from where he is."
She nodded.
Her hand turned under mine and held on.
Hale gathered the recorder and the envelope and the transcripts into an evidence bag.
"I'll need both of you available for the next few days," he said.
"But for tonight — go be with Lily.
Go be somewhere safe." He paused at the door.
"You did the right thing.
Both of you."
He left.
Nora and I sat there a moment longer.
Then she picked up her bag, and I picked up my jacket, and we walked out of the police station side by side into the cold evening air.
Her car was parked next to mine.
"Follow me to the hospital?" I said.
She looked at me.
May you like
That careful smile again, still finding its shape.
"Yes," she said.
