“He started talking about me.”
Daniel did not ask for intimate details.
He needed to know dates, documents, threats, and promises, not the words that had passed between them in secret.
He said so.
Jessica sat on the lowest stair and pulled her knees close to her chest.
She had spent seven months dividing her days into lies and conveniences, and now every ordinary thing in the house accused her.
“Why did you let him into our house?”
Daniel asked.
She closed her eyes.
“He said he had proof about the fire.
He said he wouldn’t send it electronically.”
“And when he arrived?”
“He didn’t have anything.”
Daniel waited.
The silence forced the rest of the answer into the room.
“You still let him stay.”
“Yes.”
The admission hurt more than another excuse would have.
Daniel stood up, walked to the kitchen, and filled a glass with water.
He could hear Jessica crying softly on the stairs.
He let her.
She had the right to grieve what she had done, but that grief did not obligate him to make the consequences disappear.
“Where is the cedar box?”
“Richard asked me to bring it to the office.
He said a handwriting analyst could inspect the photographs.
I gave it to him.”
“Did you make copies?”
“I photographed two of them with my phone, but I deleted the pictures when he asked.”
Daniel set the water down.
“Why?”
“He said the families could lose their chance to reopen the case if somebody leaked confidential evidence.”
“He was your boss and your lover.
He was also the only person who knew where the evidence went.”
Jessica stared at the tile floor.
Daniel remembered Caroline’s face that morning, the way she had held the invitation between two fingers as if it were contaminated.
She had not offered sympathy.
She had said that if Richard had obtained a package connected to Saint Alden, the people who kept asking questions about it might soon be in danger of being discredited.
“Caroline told me something else,” Daniel said.
“She said there was never a restitution meeting.”
Jessica’s gaze snapped toward him.
“The reservation was made under a private security company’s name,” he continued.
“The fire investigator was an actor hired for the evening.
The woman you thought was a volunteer had never worked at Saint Alden.”
“No.”
“Caroline found the invoices.”
Jessica struggled to her feet.
“Why would Richard go to all that trouble?”
