Chapter 3 - SIX WOMEN
Detective Ruiz arrived at the hospital shortly before two in the morning.
She was in her early forties, calm, observant, and careful with every question.
She placed a recorder on the tray beside my bed.
Then she took my statement from the beginning.
The dinner.
Eleanor’s demand.
The monthly payment.
Adrian’s silence.
My refusal.
The plate.
The witnesses.
Maya.
The basement.
When I finished, Ruiz did not immediately ask another question.
She studied me.
“Has your husband ever hit you before?”
“No.”
“Threatened you?”
I almost answered no again.
Then memories started rearranging themselves.
Adrian punching a wall when I refused to add his name to the condo.
Adrian taking my laptop and hiding it for two days because he thought I worked too much.
Adrian telling me that married women who kept separate bank accounts were planning to betray their husbands.
Adrian once standing in the doorway during an argument and refusing to let me leave the room.
“He never hit me.”
Ruiz waited.
“That wasn’t my question.”
I looked down.
“Yes.”
“What kind of threats?”
“Financial.”
I swallowed.
“Emotional.”
“Control?”
“Yes.”
She wrote something.
Then she opened a thin evidence folder.
“I can’t show you everything yet.”
She slid a photograph across the tray.
It showed several manila folders arranged on a table.
Each carried a woman’s name.
CLAIRE BENNETT.
MAYA CALDWELL.
REBECCA CALDWELL.
SARAH WHITLOCK.
AMELIA GRANT.
JULIA CALDWELL.
I recognized only two besides myself.
Maya.
And Rebecca.
Rebecca Caldwell had been married to Adrian’s uncle, Thomas.
The family rarely discussed her.
I had been told she died in a boating accident three years earlier.
“What’s in the files?”
“Financial records.”
Ruiz tapped the photograph.
“Identification documents.”
“Property information.”
“Correspondence.”
“Private photographs.”
“Recorded conversations.”
My skin turned cold.
“Recorded?”
“Some appear to have been made without the women knowing.”
I thought about every conversation I had ever had inside the Caldwell house.
Every complaint.
Every private confession.
Every argument with Adrian.
Ruiz continued.
“We found surveillance photographs of your condominium building taken over the last six months.”
“Six months?”
“Yes.”
“There are also emails discussing a locksmith.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“We’re still determining that.”
“You know why.”
I could hear anger entering my voice.
“They were planning to remove me.”
Ruiz didn’t disagree.
Instead, she showed me another photograph.
It was the prepared deed.
My name appeared at the bottom.
CLAIRE MARIE BENNETT.
The signature looked frighteningly close to mine.
Not exact.
But close enough to fool someone who had never watched me sign my name.
“Who prepared it?”
Ruiz shook her head.
“We’re tracing that.”
“And the dead woman?”
Her expression changed.
“Rebecca Caldwell’s file is different.”
“How?”
“It contains a handwritten statement.”
“From Rebecca?”
“We believe so.”
“What does it say?”
Ruiz closed the folder.
“I can’t release it yet.”
“Detective.”
My voice sharpened.
“This family just tried to steal my home.”
“I understand.”
“No.”
I leaned forward despite the pain in my head.
“You found my personal records in a locked basement after my husband assaulted me because I refused to surrender that property.”
Ruiz held my gaze.
“What did Rebecca write?”
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she answered carefully.
“One sentence appears several times.”
“What sentence?”
Ruiz looked toward the closed hospital door before turning back to me.
“If anything happens to me, Charles knows why.”
A cold feeling passed through my body.
“Her death was an accident.”
“That’s what the original report concluded.”
“Do you believe that?”
May you like
Ruiz picked up the photograph.
“At two this morning, Mrs. Bennett, I’m not prepared to believe anything the Caldwell family tells me without checking it first.”
