Chapter 6
The detective came to my sister's apartment at nine the next morning with a paper bag and a camera.
I was on her couch in borrowed sweatpants. My pink dress hung over the shower rod in her bathroom, still damp at the hem. I'd washed it without thinking the night before, just wanting the lake smell off it, and my sister had stopped me halfway through.
"Don't put it in the dryer," she'd said. "Just leave it."
Detective Reyes knocked once and let herself in. She was the same woman from the hospital, early forties, county sheriff's jacket, soft voice. She didn't look at the dress right away.
"How'd you sleep?" she asked.
"I didn't," I said.
She nodded and set her bag on the kitchen counter. "We need to collect that dress. And the vest if you still have it. We'll photograph any marks first, if that's okay."
My sister stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed. She'd taken the day off work.
Reyes pulled on gloves. I went to the bathroom and lifted the dress off the rod. It was cold and heavy. The embroidery along the chest had gone stiff. When I brought it out, Reyes laid a clean sheet on the dining table and had me lay it flat.
She took pictures before she touched it. Close up of the chest where the four-point harness had crossed. There were faint red lines, already fading, and a deeper rub on my left shoulder where the strap had pulled when he gripped me. She measured with a small ruler and the shutter clicked.
"This consistent with the harness?" she asked, not looking up.
"Yes," I said. "He pressed the button in the middle. The straps fell loose."
She bagged the dress in paper, not plastic, and wrote the date and my name on the label in black marker. The orange vest was in a separate bag my sister had kept by the door. Reyes tagged that too.
"We've notified FAA and NTSB," she said as she sealed it. "The helicopter's grounded at the private hangar on County Road H. No one moves it without our sign-off. Pilot's been told not to leave town."
My sister asked, "Does that mean they believe her?"
"It means there's a hold," Reyes said. "That's procedure when there's a physical struggle reported in the air."
When Reyes left, the table was empty again except for the ruler she'd forgotten and then come back for. I checked my phone. I'd been avoiding it.
There was an alert from our bank at 6:14 a.m. Unable to process transfer. Insufficient funds or account restriction. I opened the app. Our joint checking, the one he'd insisted we keep for the foundation expenses and the house, showed a zero available balance and a note: account frozen per primary holder request.
I showed my sister.
"He froze it," I said.
She took the phone and scrolled. "He can't do that when there's an open investigation."
"He just did."
I called the bank from her kitchen. The woman on the line was polite and used my married name. She said the primary holder had placed a security hold after reporting potential fraud, and I'd need a joint release or a court order to access funds until it cleared. I asked when it had been placed. Yesterday afternoon, she said, while I was still in the ER.
After I hung up, I opened my email on my sister's old laptop. The foundation gala invitations were still in my sent folder. Cream card, gold lettering. Benefit for the Children's Wing, Saturday next week, black tie, hosted by my husband and me. RSVPs were coming in underneath. Accept. Accept. So excited to celebrate you both.
He hadn't canceled them.
At noon my husband called my sister's phone because I'd stopped answering mine. She put it on speaker without asking me.
"Put her on," he said. His voice was even, the one he used for donors. "I need her to sign the medical release so the insurance can process the ER bill. They're holding it."
I stared at the phone.
"That's not true," my sister said. "The hospital billing doesn't need his release."
"It's our joint insurance," he said. "It's standard. If she doesn't sign, it goes to collections in her name."
I found my voice. "Don't call here."
"Listen," he said, softer now. "This is getting out of hand. The detective took your dress. The FAA is involved because you said something you didn't mean. Sign the release, let me unfreeze the account, we can fix this before the gala. No one needs to see those photos."
Reyes had told me before she left not to sign anything without talking to her. She'd taken pictures of the harness marks on my shoulders with my permission, and she'd said, "Keep those on your own phone too. Don't give originals to anyone but us."
I had them. Three close-ups my sister took on my phone while Reyes worked.
"No," I said into the speaker. "I'm not signing."
There was a pause. I heard him breathe.
"You're going to embarrass us both," he said, and the line went quiet for a second too long before he added, "Think about what people will think."
My sister ended the call.
May you like
I sat on the couch and sent the photos to my own email and to Reyes, then locked my phone. The apartment was quiet except for the heat clicking on. My dress was gone, but the faint red line on my shoulder was still there in the mirror, and the bank app still said frozen, and the gala invites still said my name next to his like nothing had happened.
I hadn't signed.
