“He told Chicago I had stolen from the family accounts.”
“He filed papers before I even knew my name was on them.”
“The embezzlement charge is his lock on my door.”
“If I walk into Chicago openly, they arrest me before I can speak.”
My throat tightened.
“And Grace?”
“Richard told me Grace was safer forgotten.”
“He told me Vincent knew.”
“He told me Vincent agreed.”
She closed her eyes.
“I believed him for exactly one year.”
“Then a woman in his office mailed me a photograph.”
“It was Vincent at Elena’s grave.”
She stopped.
“It was my grave.”
“An empty grave with my name on it.”
“He was kneeling.”
“I knew then that he had never known.”
I wiped my cheeks.
“What happens now?”
“Now we do it lawfully.”
“Detective Laura Mitchell believes the frame will collapse.”
“Prosecutor Jennifer Park is building the honest case.”
“My recorded statement goes to them this week.”
“Your husband’s recording goes beside it.”
“And when the warrant falls, I come home.”
“I will walk into that house through the front door.”
“Not hidden.”
“Not carried.”
“Walking.”
I looked at her exhausted face.
“Grace asked about you once removed, Elena.”
She went still.
“What did she ask?”
“She asked Rosa whether the sad man lives in the big house.”
Elena covered her mouth.
“She does not know me.”
“She will.”
“She asked about him like she already belonged to him.”
Elena began to cry without sound.
Then something changed in her face.
Her eyes moved past the camera.
Her whole body went rigid.
“Elena?”
A knock sounded through the telephone.
Three slow raps.
Not a neighbor’s knock.
A patient one.
“Elena, who is that?”
She looked back at me.
Her lips formed my name.
Then the screen went black.
The line was dead.
