Chapter 11: The Trade
Cho’s hand closed around Diane’s sleeve before she could follow the voice down the hall.
“Let me go in alone,” Diane whispered.
Cho searched her face, then glanced toward the darkness beyond the open doorway. Her jaw tightened. She took Diane’s phone, started a call, and slipped it into Diane’s coat pocket with the microphone turned outward.
“Keep the line open,” she murmured. “If you can get clear, say my name.”
Then Cho vanished through the side door, moving around the rental toward the trees. Diane heard the faint scrape of her boots on gravel, then nothing.
Inside, Christopher waited at the far end of the narrow hall. A lamp on the floor threw a wedge of yellow light up his face. His tie hung loose, and his hair was damp with sweat.
“Where is she?” Diane asked.
“You came alone.”
“Where is Veronica?”
“Give me what you brought.”
His gaze moved over Diane’s coat, her hands, her empty purse. She felt the phone pressing against her ribs, its line still open to Cho.
“I don’t have the ledgers. Detective Cho has them.”
Christopher’s expression hardened. “Then you’re useless to me.”
“I have Bertha’s last recording.”
He took a step closer. “The original?”
“A copy.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie.”
The words came softly, almost wearily. That was worse than shouting. Diane saw the man who had sat in her daughter’s kitchen and smiled over birthday cake, who had held Veronica on his shoulders at the county fair. She could not make those memories match the man blocking the hallway.
From behind a closed door came a small, sharp knock.
Diane’s heart kicked. Christopher turned toward it.
Another knock. Then a child’s voice, barely more than a breath.
“Grandma? I need the yellow blanket.”
The phrase caught Diane in the chest. Bertha had taught Veronica to say it during sleepovers, after a nightmare left the girl too frightened to explain what was wrong. Diane had promised she would always understand. A private sentence, small enough to pass for a child’s whim.
She’s behind that door.
“That’s a bedtime thing,” Diane said, making her voice gentle. “She’s scared.”
“She’s tired.”
“Let me see her.”
“No.”
The word struck harder than the lock. Diane’s hands curled, remembering the bruises beneath Bertha’s gown—the shape of fingers, not some harmless mark to be waved away. She forced her fingers open.
“Christopher, she’s seven.”
“And she’s my daughter.”
“Then open the door.”
His mouth twitched. “You don’t get to tell me what I am.”
He reached for Diane’s coat. She stepped back, and his hand stopped a few inches from her chest.
“Don’t,” she said.
For a moment, the only sound was the lake wind slipping through a gap in the window frame.
Christopher lowered his hand. “The card.”
Diane took the small memory card from her inside pocket. The true backup of Bertha’s final recording remained hidden in a separate seam in her coat, flat against the lining. She had made that copy after Cho played the file. One more piece of Bertha’s voice beyond Christopher’s reach—or so she had told herself.
The card in her palm held nothing but silence.
“Give it to me,” Christopher said.
“Open the door first.”
“You want to bargain with me?”
“I want to see my granddaughter.”
He stared at the card. “You said you had the recording.”
“I said I had a copy. You want it, let me see her.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “You still think this is about what’s fair.”
“No. I think it’s about what you’re afraid of.”
His eyes flashed toward the locked door.
Behind it, Veronica made no sound. Diane pictured her crouched in the dark, small hands over her mouth, listening for the grown-ups to decide whether she was worth protecting. The thought almost broke Diane’s resolve. Almost.
She held out the card.
Christopher snatched it. “If this is the only copy, you’re giving me the one thing that could ruin you.”
“It won’t change what happened.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“I know you wouldn’t let an autopsy happen.”
His face tightened. “You know nothing.”
“I know Bertha was afraid.”
“She was afraid of you turning her into a case file.”
The accusation landed where he aimed it. Diane felt it bite, and she hated that he could still find the soft places. But Bertha had not been a case file. She had been the girl who used to fall asleep in the back seat with one shoe missing, the woman who sent Diane pictures of Veronica’s crooked drawings, the daughter who had learned to hide fear behind a smile.
Diane swallowed. “She was my daughter.”
“And she was my wife.”
The words seemed to fill the narrow hall. From beyond the door came a faint rustle, then stillness.
Christopher turned the memory card between his fingers, examining its edges. “You copied the file yourself?”
“I saved what Cho sent.”
“Of course you did.”
“You asked for the proof.”
“I asked for the original.”
“The original is with the police.”
“And the ledgers.”
“With the police.”
“Then why bring me this?”
“To buy time.”
His smile vanished.
Diane knew she’d said too much. She held his gaze anyway, willing the phone to stay hidden, the open line to hold, Cho to be close enough to hear every word.
Christopher looked down at her coat, then back to the card. For an instant, doubt crossed his face. He turned the card over once more, as if the truth might be printed on its back.
“You thought you could make me trade my daughter for a piece of plastic?”
“I thought you might remember she’s your daughter.”
“Don’t.”
“Veronica, I’m here,” Diane called, careful not to move toward the door. “I hear you.”
A soft thump answered from the other side. Then Christopher slammed his fist against the wall beside the lock.
Diane flinched. The sound cracked through the hall, and she saw his expression change as he registered her fear. He seemed to take comfort in it.
“Stop talking to her.”
“Let her out.”
“Stop.”
The phone in Diane’s pocket warmed against her ribs. The live call. Cho could hear, if the signal held. Diane didn’t dare check.
Christopher looked once toward the front room, then back at her. “You came here thinking you had leverage.”
“I came because she’s in there.”
“You came because you can’t accept that this family doesn’t belong to you anymore.”
“Bertha belonged to herself.”
Something in him went still. Not calm—still, like a door pulled shut from the inside.
“You always thought you knew what was best for her,” he said. “You never saw what she was really doing.”
“She was trying to protect Veronica.”
“And you think you can do that now?”
“Yes.”
He let out a short, humorless breath. Then he folded the memory card between his fingers until it snapped. He dropped the broken pieces and crushed them beneath his heel.
The tiny crack seemed to echo down the hall.
“Christopher,” Diane said.
He leaned toward her, eyes fixed on the inside pocket of her coat. His suspicion had found a direction, if not the truth.
“You brought me a decoy.”
Diane said nothing.
May you like
His heel ground into the pieces.
“Fine,” he murmured. “I’ll make you watch the proof disappear next.”
