Chapter 6: The Call Rosa Heard
Maya was in the laundry room when Rosa found her.
She had changed out of her wet uniform and was feeding it into the machine with the slow, deliberate movements of someone keeping themselves occupied.
The cut on her forearm had been cleaned and covered with a strip of tape from the first aid kit under the sink.
Rosa stood in the doorway.
"He believed you," she said.
"He believed the camera."
"Same thing."
Maya pressed the start button.
The machine began to fill.
She turned and leaned against the counter and looked at Rosa with eyes that were steady but tired.
"Thank you," she said.
"For coming out."
Rosa waved a hand.
"I wasn't going to stand at that window and say nothing."
"A lot of people would have."
Rosa made a sound that was not quite agreement and not quite disagreement.
She came into the room and sat on the low stool near the folding table.
"She made a phone call," Rosa said.
"In the garden.
After he went back inside."
Maya looked at her.
"I heard her through the kitchen window.
She said, 'It didn't work.
We need another way.'"
The washing machine hummed between them.
"Another way," Maya repeated.
"That's what she said."
Maya turned this over carefully.
Six weeks of visits.
Always when the wife — Mrs.
Claire — was traveling.
Diane arriving with food, with wine, with easy conversation and a hand that found Daniel's arm whenever she wanted his attention.
Maya had noticed.
She had said nothing because it was not her place and because she had no proof of anything except a feeling.
Now she had more than a feeling.
"Does Mr.
Daniel know she made a call?"
"I don't know what he knows." Rosa folded her hands in her lap.
"But I know she said 'we.' Not 'I need another way.' We."
Maya felt the word settle somewhere cold.
"Someone else is involved."
"That's what it sounds like to me."
The machine moved into its first cycle.
Steam began to collect on the small window above the sink.
"Mrs.
Claire comes home Friday," Maya said.
"Three days."
"A lot can happen in three days."
Rosa looked at her steadily.
"What are you going to do?"
Maya thought about the baby.
About the stroller rolling toward the edge.
About eleven seconds underwater with the light going green and strange above her and the small weight of him in her hands.
She thought about Diane's face — that two-second look before she turned toward the house.
Not panic.
Not horror.
Assessment.
"I'm going to make sure Mrs.
Claire knows everything the moment she lands," Maya said.
"Before anyone else can reach her."
Rosa nodded slowly.
"And if Diane gets to her first?"
Maya reached into her pocket.
She set her phone on the folding table between them.
On the screen was a photograph — slightly blurred, taken quickly — of the security monitor.
The timestamp.
Diane's position in the garden.
Clear enough.
"Then she'll have to explain this," Maya said.
Rosa looked at the photograph for a long moment.
Then she looked up.
"There's something else you should know," she said.
"About why Diane started coming here six weeks ago."
Maya waited.
May you like
"It started the week after Mr.
Daniel's father changed his will."
