Chapter 7: Raymond at the Door
I forwarded the photograph to Carla before I'd fully processed what I was looking at.
She called back in four minutes.
"Stay inside.
Lock the doors.
I'm running the number now." A pause, the sound of movement.
"Does anyone else have a key to your home?"
"Aiden."
"No one else?"
"No."
"All right.
I'll have a car on your street within the hour.
Don't open the door to anyone you don't know."
She hung up.
Aiden had read the photograph over my shoulder.
He walked to the front window, stood to one side of the frame, and looked out at the street without showing himself.
"Silver car," he said.
"Parked across from the neighbor's hedge.
It was there when Carla arrived.
I noticed it and told myself it was nothing."
"You should have said something."
"Yes." He stepped back from the window.
"I should have."
I sat down.
My legs had gone unsteady, which surprised me.
I had felt so certain an hour ago — clear and resolved in a way I hadn't expected.
Now the certainty was still there, but underneath it was something colder.
Raymond Colt was not a name in a file anymore.
He was a man sitting in a car outside my house.
The doorbell rang.
Aiden and I looked at each other.
"Don't," he said.
It rang again.
Then a knock.
Then a voice, pleasant and unhurried, as if he were a neighbor returning a borrowed tool.
"I think we should talk.
That's all.
Just a conversation."
I walked to the door.
"Don't open it," Aiden said quietly.
I didn't open it.
I stood close enough to be heard.
"I've already spoken to the police," I said.
A short silence.
"That was premature," Raymond said.
"You don't have the full picture."
"I have forty-one files and a recording of your voice."
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"Those files are incomplete," he said.
"Harold wasn't the man you think he was.
There are things about your husband's business dealings that you don't know.
Things that would be very painful to have made public." His voice stayed smooth.
"I'm not threatening you.
I'm offering you the chance to understand the whole story before this goes further than either of us wants."
"Harold is de@d," I said.
"He can't defend himself against whatever story you've prepared.
And I notice you're not denying the recording."
"I'm saying context matters."
"Then give your context to the detective.
Her name is DS Carla Mwangi.
She's expecting to hear from you."
A long pause.
When Raymond spoke again, the pleasantness was gone.
"You're making a mistake," he said.
"I've protected myself for ten years.
One USB drive from a d*ad child's toy is not going to change that."
The words landed like something physical.
Aiden's hand came to my shoulder.
I kept my voice level.
"Then you have nothing to worry about."
Footsteps on the path.
The click of the gate.
I looked through the side window and watched Raymond Colt walk back to the silver car.
He didn't hurry.
He got in, sat for a moment, then drove away at a perfectly normal speed.
My phone rang.
Carla.
"The number belongs to a burner purchased with cash six weeks ago," she said.
"We're running the plate on the vehicle now.
Was there contact?"
"He came to the door."
A beat of silence.
"What did he say?"
I told her.
When I got to the part about Harold, she stopped me.
"He claimed Harold was involved in something."
"Yes.
He didn't specify.
He said it would be painful to make public."
"That's a pressure tactic," Carla said.
"He's testing whether you'll back down to protect Harold's reputation." A pause.
"Will you?"
I looked at the crocheted flowers on the table.
The yellow one with its seam snipped open.
The blue bunny.
Amelia's careful, rounded handwriting on six small pieces of paper.
"No," I said.
"I won't."
"Good," Carla said.
"Because I pulled Harold's original accident report an hour ago.
There was a second vehicle.
A witness reported it at the scene and then withdrew the statement two days later.
The witness's name is in the file." Her voice was steady and precise.
"His name is Thomas Weller.
He appears in Harold's emails on the USB drive as T.W."
The room tilted slightly.
"He was Harold's contact," I said.
"Harold trusted him."
"Raymond got to him first," Carla said.
May you like
"But Thomas Weller is still alive.
And people who've been carrying guilt for ten years sometimes decide they're tired."
