He sets his drink down. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“Write down any email addresses and passwords.” He writes down his passwords, and I leave him alone, heading for his office. I have to access as much data as possible before the police get here and take it.
His office is small but organized. Each month’s financials are in a binder on a bookshelf. I flip through a few pages, and everything seems to be in good order. I think of the chaos of his dorm room and am surprised. But if Belina was really running the show, this may be more her space than his.
I open his laptop and enter the password, EMMETTANDBELINA. Doubt Alec shared that with Misha.
The photo of Alec, Emmett, and Belina on the boat is the background image. I don’t have time to get nostalgic. I pull a flash drive out of my bag, one of several I keep on me, and begin uploading as much data as I can.
The mirroring process takes a few minutes, so I head back to the living room.
Before I reach Alec, Misha hurries into the living room. “The lawyer is coming from north of Boston,” she says. “He’s not going to make it in time.”
Alec swears under his breath but doesn’t leave his drink.
“Please, what do we do?” Misha says to me. “You have to stay and help. You owe us that.”
As if you could help.
“I can stay,” I say. “Look, Alec, the police are going to cuff you. They’ll walk you down the sidewalk for the press, who will certainly be on your lawn. You have to shower, shave, and put on a clean white shirt.”
He turns to Misha. “I can’t say goodbye to him. It’s too hard.”
“Emmett knows you love him,” she says so softly. I feel like an intruder for the first time. “This is temporary.” She takes his hand. “Let’s find you some appropriate clothes.”
“Phillip Hale, the blogger, he’s going to post Belina’s planner,” I say to them before they leave. “With my theories, to begin creating reasonable doubt. But if there’s anything you can tell me about Belina or someone who would want to hurt her . . . or you.”
“My business wasn’t all on the books,” he says. “She helped me with numbers, had a few connections. Once Uncle Cal dropped me, I needed capital. Ricky had ideas. There were some other investors . . .”
“Who?”
“Stay out of all that. Really, it’s not important.”
He leaves before I can argue. I pick up the pages of the journal Misha scattered, returning both copies to my bag.
It’s only a few minutes before Alec returns with Misha. She’s out of her yoga gear and in winter-white slacks and a pink top. We gather in the entry room with the floral wallpaper. Everything is quiet and almost calm. Then headlights beam, and the quiet ends with the sound of vehicles driving too fast down the street.
“It’s the media,” I say, not needing to look. “They’ll set up, and the police will be right behind them.”
Misha crosses her arms, her Alex and Ani bangles clinking. “Should I say something to the press? Like they do on TV?”
Alec touches her arm. “No, honey, you can’t—”
“Yes, she can and should,” I say, surprised at her offer. “It’ll cut down the time the media plays the footage of you in cuffs. Sound bites from a tearful wife could make a big difference.”
“I can do that,” Misha says coolly. “What do I say?”
“Talk about his innocence. Mention your sadness for Belina’s family and how important she was to your own. The media will ask if you’re cooperating, and you insist you’ve done everything asked.”
“What about the memos you mentioned? The journal?” she asks.
“Yes.” I smile at her, which is not exactly appropriate at this time, but it’s an impressive suggestion. “Send viewers to TheHaleReport.com for proof of Alec’s innocence and clues to the real killers. Offer a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information about the real killer.”
She inhales sharply at the money but doesn’t argue. Alec is watching her closely, but he’s not arguing either. “You should wear a blazer,” she says to him. “The navy Brooks Brothers.”
After pulling it out of the hallway closet, she opens it so he can slip his arms inside. She runs her manicured nails along the shoulders, picking off a few pieces of lint that I don’t see. They lean toward each other, not touching but reaching out.
Wanting to give them some privacy, I peer through a narrow window by the door. The news crews are hustling, the cords and lights and cameras being set up. As the red and blue lights flood the entryway where we stand, every camera light outside turns on, lenses following the silent police cars—no sirens in this neighborhood—as they block off the driveway.
“This is it,” he says calmly, as if finally accepting what’s about to happen.
“I’m sorry,” I say. My eyes burn, but it’d be selfish to cry.
This is your fault.
Alec’s jaw is set, eyes focused. His gaze goes toward the hallway where Emmett sleeps. “Help them,” he says to me. “But don’t—”
A knock on the door cuts him off.
“Showtime.” Misha opens the door to let Detective Ramos and two officers with empty boxes inside.
“Alec Mathers, you’re under arrest for the murder of Belina Cabrala.” Detective Ramos’s assertive gaze is narrowed when he sees me. An officer reads Alec his rights as Detective Ramos cuffs him.
“Some advice,” Detective Ramos says to Alec as he shifts him toward the door. “Don’t say anything to the press.”
“He’s not.” Misha steps close to the detective. “Now get the hell out of my way so I can.”
Chapter 16
I watch Misha leave the gaggle of reporters and stride back into the house. She breezes past me and heads toward the kitchen. I should leave, but I won’t. I haven’t gotten what I need from her.
I text Uncle Cal that we need to meet, then text Jack to let him know I’ll be even later than I said. It’s all I can do not to run home. I lean my forehead against the window, my breath warming the cold glass. I’ve seen people arrested plenty but never a friend, someone I’ve made dinner for and shared countless laughs with. Someone who knew me when no one else did.
I head back to Alec’s office, where I’d taken my flash drive with a mirror copy of his computer before the police confiscated his hard drive. They took a few binders of data with them but not all of them. I open one labeled contracts, which is thinner than the others. There’s only one inside, signed by someone with a chicken scratch signature from Venantius Ventures based in Jamestown, Rhode Island. It tripled the number of fishing licenses Alec had from four to twelve. It was executed six months after Belina started working as their nanny.
I hear Emmett cough through the wall and then Misha’s heels in the hallway. I take a photo of the contract with my phone and head toward the hallway. She’s leaning against the doorframe, her thin shape illuminated by a night-light projecting stars all around the room. I stand next to her and see Emmett in the corner of his toddler bed. I remember that my arrival woke Alec, and he had been sleeping there. It’s easy to picture the two of them together. Emmett with his arm slung over his dad. Alec snuggled against his son’s red curly hair.
But that’s not real. Emmett is alone, and the half of his bed where his father slept next to him is cold and will remain that way.
He’s never coming back.
You’re not good enough to help him.
Misha touches my shoulder, and I realize there are tears on my cheeks. She shuts the door, and we head toward the kitchen, where she starts opening cabinets and then the freezer. The lights are out, and I can see only her silhouette, which now includes a bottle of wine and two glasses. She opens the back-porch slider with her thin hip, and I follow. She turns on a heat lamp and sits down in one of two folding chairs, the patio furniture in winter covers.
I pull the glass door shut and watch Misha reach into her Moncler puffer to pull out a pack of Parliament 100s. I haven’t seen t
hat brand since I left Kansas. Those smokers are usually women covered in baby oil, tanning along the river, where people go tubing or noodling for fish. The river was brown from mud and mined minerals resurfacing after the excavation businesses went bust.
You thought you were too good for those women.
Too good for that town.
“Like ice wine?” Misha asks, motioning to the ground where there’s a stemless glass filled to the brim. “It’s sweet but goes down smooth.”
“Perfect,” I say, sitting and taking a grateful sip and then another. “You did great out there.” She was sympathetic, tearful, which seemed sincere, and she mentioned Phillip’s blog.
“I hope it helps,” she says, her tone as if that’s the last help she’ll offer. She takes a deep inhale on her cigarette before sending smoke up in the air.
We’re quiet as we sip our wine. It’s sweeter than a Coke but freezing cold. The silence isn’t easy, and I search the backyard for anything to break it. I notice a red light along the roofline in the corner of the porch. “Is that a camera?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, sounding like she forgot it was there. “Alec installed it when he had to store our boat in the yard. The neighbors loved that.”
“Did you look at the footage?” I ask.
“He said there wasn’t anything on there.” Misha glances at the camera again. “It’s all on his computer.”
I hadn’t thought about private security systems in the area. Maybe that could lead to more information about Belina and who followed her into the cemetery.
“How’s . . . Emma?” she asks.
“Ester,” I say. “Beautiful but not sleeping much. Being a mom is different than I expected.”
She nods, stares straight ahead. “I have a good momma. Dumb but good. Cares a lot. I sometimes think I’ve got that formula backwards.”
I smile to myself because there is this insightful streak that I really appreciate about Misha. “If you’re worried about it,” I say, “you’re probably doing better than you think.”
“Does your mom give you good advice?” she asks with kindness in her voice.
But the voice in my head merely replays my mother’s words.
Get outta here, girlie.
You’re cursed by the devil.
Don’t you ever come back again.
“I don’t speak to my parents,” I say.
“How awful,” she says and glances toward Emmett’s window. Her face pales in the back-porch lights.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“This kind of thing . . . ,” she says softly, glaring into the darkness of their perfectly manicured backyard. “When I was younger and my family was still poor, we lived in a two-bedroom shithole. Drug dealers on our corner. Everyone into something they shouldn’t be.” She takes a long inhale. “But this kind of thing . . . this thing . . . doesn’t happen to me now. Not with this husband at this address. My family got lucky with that money coming, but what the hell does that matter now? I might as well be married to the dealer on our old block. At least he had real hustle. What good does it do now?”
“Better lawyer,” I offer.
She doesn’t respond but crosses her legs. I see the outline of her thighs, thinner than I remember. It takes real focus to stay that skinny. Her frame seems like it could be twenty pounds heavier, and she works out all the time and eats very little to keep it that way.
It reminds me she’s got a strong will. When her mind is set, on being the thinnest friend, on marrying a name to match her new money, she does it. At the moment, I feel that will turning against me and Alec.
“Are you going to stick with him?” It’s one thing to cry for the press. It’s another to stay in a marriage you don’t want. In a life you’d never choose.
The life Jack has now.
The life you forced on him.
She stabs her cigarette into the iron arm of the chair and lights another. “I don’t know. Alec has screwed up plenty. That’s part of the deal, I know. But can I forgive this . . . or ever trust him again . . .”
The disappointment is sharp in my gut. “He needs you.”
“Alec needs everybody,” she says. “If I lived one day of my life the way he lives all of his, then this house of cards would have come down a long time ago.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“That keeping up appearances and getting bills paid on time is serious work. I can’t just bumblefuck my way through it like my husband.”
Nothing to argue with there. “Do you believe him?”
She half grins into her wine. “Yeah,” she says. “He really did come home drunk the night she was killed. He was loud, covered in pizza grease, but still looking for chips.”
“Cool Ranch Doritos?” I say, remembering college.
She nods, not seeming amused. “He had a black eye too.” She clears her throat and takes a puff. “He didn’t remember how he got it.”
I see an awful flash of Belina trying to fend him off. I dismiss the worry and take another sip of the too-sweet wine.
All you have left are lies.
“Our son deserves to know his parents.” Misha pauses to slice me a look, and I don’t resent her for it. I feel the same about Ester. Wanting more for her than the little I had. “Emmett will have a good address and the right schools and a great college and a fan-fucking-tastic life,” Misha says, punctuating her point with her cigarette in one hand, waving her almost empty wineglass in the other. “A lot of my life I was hungry. He will never know that feeling.”
“It’s difficult changing your life,” I say.
You didn’t change one bit.
You’re the same selfish person.
Misha reaches for the wine, fills the glass to the top again. “I have to step carefully now. I’m too much to handle for most rich men. My age and expectations make me more a first wife, rather than a second or third.”
I set down my wine, not wanting to have a loose tongue too. “Don’t give up on Alec.”
“I don’t need your advice,” she says as she drops onto the back of the chair.
A hostile witness I could handle. “Tell me about his business, and I’ll leave you to this bottle of too-sweet wine.”
She snickers. “What about it?”
“You’ve made some remarks about money trouble. Did your family cut you off?”
“How dare you—”
“I watched my friend and your husband get carted off in the back of a police car. We’re far past the point of indignation. I’m here to help him. I suggest you take a crack at it yourself.”
“Belina got herself killed. We’re caught in the middle.”
She stands up for her next cigarette, and I have only an instant of regret before I get in her face. “If Alec’s business is as crooked as I’m gathering, you’re in the shit, Misha. There will be no house or car to sell, no furniture to sit on, no Dorothy Williams boutique dresses to snag a new husband. Even that wedding ring you keep so sparkling will be sold at a police auction.”
I hear her swallow thickly before taking a long shallow breath. “We aren’t broke. Alec’s business was slowing down because the feds were digging into things.”
“What things?” I say.
“All the licenses and cash. The fishing business is volatile. Alec made some mistakes.”
“In what way?”
“Payments had to be distributed to these captains regularly. Thousands a week that Alec managed. Cash for the fish, gas, docking the boats. It got to be too much. Belina was helping because it was her idea but—”
“This business was her idea,” I say softly, and she doesn’t appear surprised. “Did she bring the Venantius Ventures contract?”
Her jaw pops out, gaze suddenly angry. “Where the hell did you come across that name?”
“There’s a contract with them in Alec’s office.”
She lets out an exasperated breath. “Alec said you were digging around. You need to listen to me. Don’
t you dare bring me into anything with him.”
“Him?” I say. “Who is him?”
“This is no joke, Devon. Alec owes some serious money to some bad people. You do not want to be the one asking questions about this business.”
I’m stunned she and Alec don’t see what this kind of motive would mean. Or maybe they do see, but they’re too scared to do anything about it. I take a step toward Misha. “Tell me who Alec and Belina worked with. I’m going to find out anyway.”
She waves me back, wobbling as she does it. “We’re done here.” She picks up her glass, drops the pack of cigarettes, and leaves them. “The lawyer is with Alec. I’ve gotta check in.”
I need more time, more pressure points to dig into the money that’s owed. And to find out to whom. “I’m the only way Emmett grows up with a father not in prison. Think about who you’re really protecting.”
Misha strides over to the sliding glass door, heaves it open. “I know exactly who I’m protecting.”
Chapter 17
In the dark of Ester’s room, the radiator hisses softly along with her sound machine. I lie on the floor, next to her crib. It’s almost midnight, and she’ll be crying soon. I don’t want to wake up Jack, whom I found asleep on the couch with ESPN on mute. He was waiting up, and I’m not ready to talk.
To tell him you’re wrong about everything.
The voice is right. I’ve got a gnawing feeling in my stomach, painful and real as a loose tooth. This happens from time to time when I’m working on a difficult case. I am doing something wrong.
I wiggle my wrist through the slats in the crib, running my fingers lightly over Ester’s chest. I picture our breaths together, mingling across our bodies. I put a shaking hand over my heartbeat and feel it beating with hers. At last comes the focus.
I concentrate on Alec and the contract. These are all my areas of expertise, so I’m in luck. My glance at his monthly financials confirmed the money problems are business related and likely illegal. All that cash is a dead giveaway. The profits increasing even when they shouldn’t. The ties to the Economic Development Council. It all points to a difficult conversation I need to have with Uncle Cal.
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