Chapter 6: Forty-Eight Hours
Patricia didn't ask questions that first night.
She made up the spare room, left a set of clothes on the chair — close enough to Maya's size — and sat with her at the kitchen table until nearly midnight while Maya held a cup of tea she barely drank.
"You don't have to tell me anything tonight," Patricia said.
"I know." Maya looked at the table.
"I just need to know I'm not losing my mind."
"You're not losing your mind." Patricia said it without hesitation, without qualification.
"I've known you for fourteen years.
You are the most clear-headed person I know."
Something in Maya's chest loosened slightly.
Just slightly.
She slept for six hours — more than she had expected.
When she woke, the pain in her incision had settled to a dull, manageable ache.
She showered, dressed in Patricia's borrowed clothes, and came downstairs to find Patricia already at the table with coffee and a notepad.
"Tell me what you need," Patricia said.
"Not what happened.
What you need."
Maya sat down.
"I need to wait.
And I need to not fall apart while I'm waiting."
"Those are both things you can do." Patricia pushed the coffee toward her.
"What else?"
"I need to know that when this is over, I still have something left."
Patricia looked at her for a long moment.
"You have your name.
Your mind.
Your twelve years of work.
Your apartment — which I suspect you're going to get back." She paused.
"And you have me.
That's not nothing."
Maya nodded.
It wasn't nothing.
The forty-eight hours passed in a particular kind of silence — the silence of waiting for something large and irreversible to happen.
Maya read.
She helped Patricia with small things around the house.
She did not check the news.
She did not call Daniel more than once a day.
On the second afternoon, Daniel called her.
"The warrants came through this morning," he said.
"Renner executed them an hour ago."
Maya set down the book she wasn't reading.
"Both of them?"
"Mark and Evelyn.
And a third warrant for the hospital — specifically for the records administrator who accessed your file fourteen times in the six weeks before your surgery." A pause.
"His name is Gordon Fells.
He's been on staff there for nine years."
"And Cara Voss?"
"Renner had someone watching her since yesterday morning.
She was picked up at the apartment — your apartment — at eight forty-five this morning."
Maya was quiet for a moment.
"She was still there."
"She had moved in," Daniel said.
"There were personal items throughout the apartment.
Clothing in the wardrobe.
Her name written inside a book on the nightstand." Another pause.
"Maya — she had your passport.
Your original.
It was in her bag."
The passport.
The one item Maya hadn't been able to take when she fled the balcony.
"Is it intact?" Maya asked.
"It is.
Renner has it.
It will be returned to you after processing."
Maya looked out Patricia's kitchen window at the ordinary afternoon outside — a neighbor walking a dog, a car reversing slowly out of a driveway.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Renner wants you to come in tomorrow morning.
Formal statement.
She'll brief you on the charges." Daniel's voice was careful.
"It's going to be a long process, Maya.
Months, possibly longer.
But the financial evidence is solid.
The forged signature alone carries significant weight.
Combined with the insurance policy, the sedative, and the hospital records — the case is strong."
"Will Mark try to negotiate?"
A brief silence.
"His lawyer called this afternoon.
They're already talking about cooperation in exchange for reduced charges."
Maya felt something cold move through her.
"He'll give up Cara Voss."
"Almost certainly."
"And Evelyn?"
"Evelyn has not retained a lawyer yet," Daniel said.
"Which is either very foolish or means she's planning something else."
Maya thanked him and ended the call.
She sat at the table for a long moment.
Then Patricia appeared in the doorway with two glasses and a bottle of wine she had clearly been saving for something.
"Well?" Patricia said.
"They arrested them this morning."
Patricia set the glasses on the table and poured without ceremony.
She sat down across from Maya and raised her glass.
Maya raised hers.
They didn't say anything.
There was nothing that needed saying yet.
The wine was good and the kitchen was warm and outside the window the neighbor's dog was pulling at its lead toward something interesting in the hedge.
That night, for the first time in weeks, Maya slept without waking.
But in the morning, Daniel called again.
"Evelyn posted bail," he said.
"And she's asking to meet with you.
May you like
Alone.
No lawyers."
