“It’s a sprain,” I said. “The doctor said nothing was fractured.”
Jacob closed his eyes, as though even that was too much.
“She could have killed you.”
“She could have destroyed all of us,” I said. “But she didn’t get to.”
Detective Warren returned with a file in his hand.
He asked whether I felt able to make a formal statement.
“Yes,” I said.
Jacob looked at me.
So did Mara, standing in the doorway behind the detective.
For the first time that night, I felt something stronger than fear.
I felt myself become still.
“Tell me what you found,” I said.
The evidence grew through the night.
Ellie had not acted alone. Grant had coached her for months. He had sent her template documents and told her how to use old copies of my signature from papers I had signed years earlier. He had moved money through three companies that existed only on paper. He had promised Ellie enough money to leave Jacob once the house was sold.
But the second recording contained something worse.
It had been made by Jacob.
He had placed the device in Ellie’s office two days before, after he noticed that she hid whenever Grant called. He had not been brave enough to confront her then. He had only wanted to know whether he was imagining things.
The recording began with Grant’s voice.
“You are making this harder than it has to be.”
Ellie’s voice answered, brittle with frustration.
“He keeps asking questions.”
“Then make him feel guilty for asking them.”
“He’s getting close to his mother again.”
“Use that. Tell him she’s trying to control him. He has always wanted her approval.”
There was a pause.
Then Ellie said, “What if she refuses to sign?”
Grant laughed.
“She won’t refuse if you make her feel responsible. She guaranteed the mortgage because she thinks she owes him a future. Tell her Jacob will lose the house if she doesn’t help.”
“And if Jacob finds out?”
“He won’t. He never sees what is in front of him. That is why you married him.”
The room in the station had been quiet as the recording played.
But those last words made Jacob flinch as if someone had struck him.
I reached for his hand.
He let me take it.
Ellie was brought through the hallway just before dawn.
She wore a gray police blanket around her shoulders. Her hair was tangled, and there was a small cut above one eyebrow. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her.
When she saw Jacob, she stopped.
For one moment, all the practiced control vanished from her face.
“Jacob,” she said.
He looked at her.
