Chapter 5: She Still Hadn't Asked for a Lawyer
My neighbor Ruth watched Lily.
Ruth was seventy-one, had known Elena since before we moved in, and had brought a casserole to our door every week for the first three months after the funeral.
When I called her at eight-fifteen and said I needed help, she was at my door in four minutes wearing her coat over her pajamas and carrying a box of Lily's favorite crackers.
"Go," she said.
"I've got her."
Lily looked up from the couch.
"Are you coming back, Daddy?"
"Before lunch," I said.
"I promise."
She held up Bunny.
"Bunny says okay."
I drove to the station.
Cole met me in the corridor outside the interview rooms.
Through the narrow window in the door, I could see Meredith sitting at the table.
Hands folded.
Back straight.
She looked like someone waiting for a delayed flight, not someone who had spent the night in a police station after cameras were found hidden throughout her home.
"She slept," Cole said.
"Four hours.
Asked for coffee at six.
That's all."
"She's not afraid," I said.
"No," Cole said.
"She's not."
"That means she thinks she still has something."
Cole looked at me.
"That's what I think too."
"Can I talk to her?"
"Not alone.
And anything she says in there — "
"I know," I said.
"I just need to see her face."
Cole considered it for a moment.
Then she opened the door.
Meredith looked up when I walked in.
Something moved across her face — not guilt, not fear.
Something more like calculation.
She watched me sit down across from her the way you watch a card being placed on a table.
"You came," she said.
"Where's V?" I said.
Her expression didn't change.
But her right thumb pressed into her left palm, just once.
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
"The prepaid phone," I said.
"A hundred and twelve messages.
V.
Fourteen months.
The anniversary.
The document."
She looked at the table.
"You told V when I changed my schedule," I said.
"You told V when Lily started a new school.
You locked my daughter in a laundry room because V told you to spend more time with her alone." My voice stayed level.
I had decided on the drive over that it would stay level.
"You married me because V needed you inside this house."
Meredith was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said: "You don't understand what you're involved in."
"Then explain it to me."
"I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
She looked up.
For the first time since I had walked in, something behind her eyes shifted.
Not softness.
Something more like a warning.
"You think I'm the threat," she said.
"I'm not the threat.
I was supposed to keep you safe."
The room went very still.
"Safe from what?" I said.
"From V finding another way in." She leaned forward slightly.
"If I wasn't there, someone else would have been.
Someone who wouldn't have — " She stopped.
"Wouldn't have what?"
Her jaw tightened.
"Someone who wouldn't have hesitated."
Cole, standing near the wall, spoke quietly.
"Hesitated to do what, Meredith?"
Meredith sat back.
The calculation returned to her face.
"I want to talk about a deal," she said.
"Before I say anything else, I want to talk about a deal."
I stood up.
She looked at me.
"Where are you going?"
"Home," I said.
"To my daughter."
I walked to the door.
Behind me, Meredith's voice came low and flat.
"Ask your estate lawyer about the amendment," she said.
"The one filed six weeks ago.
Ask him who filed it."
May you like
I stopped with my hand on the door frame.
"Ask him," she said again, "before V finds out you know."
