Chapter 5
Vanessa insisted the phone had slipped.
Nobody believed her.
Maya did not demand the password.
She simply looked at Vanessa.
“You can unlock it voluntarily, or we preserve it exactly as it is and let people much more patient than me examine it.”
Vanessa glanced at Richard.
Maya saw it.
Richard saw Maya see it.
“Don’t look at him,” Maya said.
Vanessa’s eyes returned to her.
“This has nothing to do with your ring.”
“Then unlocking it should be easy.”
Vanessa remained silent.
Julian instructed Anthony to secure the device.
Richard exploded.
“You’re stealing personal property now?”
Maya turned toward him.
“You were strangely quiet when she was trying to destroy it.”
Richard approached Maya.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You always wanted to turn these men against me.”
“No.”
“You think they respect you because you punched me?”
Maya stepped closer.
“No, Richard. I think they’re watching you because every time somebody mentions Eleanor, you panic.”
His jaw tightened.
Maya continued.
“And every time somebody asks Vanessa a question, she looks at you before answering.”
Vanessa snapped.
“Stop acting like you know us.”
The words landed strangely.
Us.
Not him.
Us.
Maya looked at Vanessa.
Richard closed his eyes for half a second.
Too late.
Six years of marriage suddenly became a room full of small memories Maya wished she could unsee.
Vanessa joining family vacations because Richard said she was lonely.
Vanessa knowing which restaurants Richard preferred before Maya did.
Richard taking calls on the terrace and deleting the history.
Vanessa appearing at Lily’s christening wearing a bracelet Maya had once seen in Richard’s desk.
Maya had asked about it.
Richard told her it was a gift for an employee.
She had accepted the answer.
Now Vanessa wore the same bracelet.
Maya looked at it.
Vanessa instinctively covered her wrist.
That answered the question.
Maya felt something inside her go cold.
Not broken.
Cold.
“How long?”
Richard laughed dismissively.
“Maya—”
“How long?”
Vanessa looked away.
Maya did not raise her voice.
“Before Lily?”
Neither answered.
That was enough.
Maya removed her wedding ring.
Richard stared at her.
She placed it on the library desk.
The sound was almost nothing.
It felt louder than the birthday cake collapsing.
“You think you can embarrass me with this?” Richard asked.
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Separating what I know from what I still need to prove.”
Richard scoffed.
Maya gestured toward Vanessa.
“I know what that is.”
Then toward Eleanor’s paper.
“I still need to prove what this is.”
Richard’s face changed slightly.
Maya saw it.
There.
A connection.
The affair mattered emotionally.
But the secret surrounding Eleanor frightened him more.
Maya realized she had almost allowed the personal betrayal to distract her from the more dangerous one.
She picked up the orchid paper.
“Julian, who received the other envelopes?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Eleanor separated information.”
“Yes.”
“So somebody else has the rest.”
“Possibly.”
Maya remembered the three envelopes she mailed eleven years earlier.
One went to Boston.
One to Milwaukee.
One to an address in Chicago she had forgotten.
She had been nineteen.
Tired.
Grieving.
She had not understood that Eleanor might have been placing pieces of the same secret into different hands.
Maya looked at Richard.
“Were you looking for those too?”
Richard smiled.
“You’re chasing ghosts.”
May you like
Maybe.
But Vanessa’s hands had started trembling.
