Chapter 10 - The Buyer
The buyer was a Delaware company called Larkspur Properties.
Evelyn had never heard of it.
Neither had Mara.
But Martin had.
When Ortiz showed him the name, he went pale.
“That company belongs to Gideon Shaw.”
“Who?” Evelyn asked.
“A private lender.”
“Adrian’s lender?”
Martin nodded.
“Shaw finances distressed developments. He doesn’t care how desperate someone is as long as the collateral is clean.”
“The collateral isn’t clean.”
“He may not know that.”
Mara shook her head.
“He knows enough. No legitimate buyer closes on a nine-million-dollar residential property overnight.”
Martin looked at her.
“You’re assuming the purchase is real.”
Evelyn understood first.
“It isn’t a sale.”
“No,” Martin said. “It’s a foreclosure substitute.”
Adrian had borrowed money from Shaw.
The house transfer would satisfy part of the debt.
Once Larkspur held title, unwinding the transaction would become more complicated.
The attempt was stopped before recording.
But the urgency revealed something.
Adrian was running out of time.
Evelyn returned home that evening accompanied by Detective Ortiz.
Adrian was gone.
The dining room remained almost exactly as she had left it.
One chair overturned.
Wax hardened down the candles.
Her broken anniversary evening preserved like a crime scene.
Evelyn walked upstairs.
Adrian’s closet was half empty.
His passport was gone.
So were two watches and the emergency cash he kept in a bedroom safe.
But he had left photographs.
Their honeymoon.
Christmases.
Ordinary mornings.
Twelve years reduced to objects someone chose not to pack.
Ortiz stood in the doorway.
“You okay?”
“No.”
It was the first answer Evelyn had given all day without qualification.
She sat on the bed.
“I keep looking for the version of him I married.”
Ortiz said nothing.
“That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“What if he never existed?”
“That’s not a question evidence can answer.”
Evelyn almost smiled.
“My father would like you.”
Ortiz nodded toward the nightstand.
“Maybe start with what evidence can answer.”
A small envelope lay beneath Adrian’s watch tray.
Evelyn opened it.
Inside was a receipt from a private pharmacy dated three years earlier.
The medication name meant nothing to her.
Ortiz photographed it.
A quick search identified it.
Warfarin.
An anticoagulant.
Evelyn’s heartbeat became audible in her ears.
The prescription was not in Adrian’s name.
It belonged to Stephen Mercer.
His brother.
Ortiz immediately called for the record to be preserved.
Evelyn sat motionless.
Adrian had access to anticoagulants around the time Thomas found unfamiliar tablets.
Still not proof.
But no longer coincidence she could dismiss.
Downstairs, another detective discovered Adrian’s office computer had been wiped.
Not professionally.
The drive remained recoverable.
At 9:30 p.m., Evelyn’s phone rang.
Adrian.
Ortiz signaled for her to answer on speaker.
“Hello?”
“You brought police into our home.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then come back and explain.”
Silence.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere I can think.”
“Did you put medication in my father’s pill organizer?”
Mara, Ortiz and Martin all watched her.
Adrian said nothing.
Evelyn repeated the question.
Finally:
“No.”
Too fast.
Too clean.
“Did you know Stephen was prescribed warfarin?”
A pause.
“Stephen has had heart issues.”
“Did you ever possess his medication?”
“No.”
“Did you tell my father he wouldn’t get the chance to go to police?”
Another silence.
“You’re listening to Mara.”
“I’m listening to you.”
Adrian exhaled sharply.
“Your father wanted me gone from the first day.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“He humiliated me.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“He made me feel like I had to ask permission to exist in my own marriage.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
There was the wound beneath everything.
Perhaps real.
Perhaps deep.
Still not justification.
“Did you kill him?”
Adrian’s voice cracked.
“No.”
For the first time, he sounded less angry than horrified.
“No. Evelyn, whatever else you believe about me, I did not kill Thomas.”
She listened carefully.
Then he added:
“But I know who gave him those pills.”
Everyone in the room went still.
“Who?”
Adrian lowered his voice.
May you like
“Martin.”
Across the room, Martin stopped breathing.
