Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Chloe reads from a paper. Words I do catch: conspiracy, kidnapping, obstruction, solicitation, wire fraud. She doesn’t say murder. Not yet. She does say accessory and after the fact and aggravated assault. She turns Bob gently, cuffs him, and asks if he understands.
He nods, dazed. He looks at Karen again. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t touch him. She steps back so the officers can come in. When they bring him out, she follows as far as the porch and stops.
He sees me across the street. For a second he looks like a man trying to find a new meaning of family and not liking any of the definitions. Then the car door opens, and he ducks his head, and then he’s gone.
Karen folds her arms around herself. I start to move and Arrow catches my sleeve. “Let her come to you,” he says.
She does. She crosses the street, robe flapping, slippers silent. She stops in front of me and puts both hands on my face like she’s checking for fever.
“You told the truth,” she says. “I raised you to tell the truth. I hate this and I love you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Don’t apologize.” She looks at Arrow. “Do not let her do stupid things alone.”
“I won’t,” he says. “I haven’t.”
She nods, like that tracks with what she’s guessed, and then goes back across the street to talk to Chloe. They stand shoulder to shoulder like women looking at a fire.
By noon, the city knows. The local sites light up: PROCUREMENT CHIEF RESIGNS, ARRESTED IN SEPARATE INVESTIGATION. My name isn’t in the articles. Arby’s is. It hurts anyway. I call my therapist and leave a message that says, “Make room. I’m bringing a storm.”
The rest happens fast, because it has to.
Search warrants land at Stonehouse, at the marina storage office, at Unit 14 by the tracks. Devereaux provides adjacency records with names this time, delivered to Chloe by a lawyer in a suit whose tie says I believe in rules. Unit 14 turns out to be what we thought: a signal room and a staging area. Routers. A server with a mirrored drive. A cheap tripod with a broken latch that makes my stomach turn.
Rook Salazar gets picked up coming out of a gym at 5:40 a.m. with a duffel bag and a polite smile that doesn’t make it to his eyes. The arresting officer is too smart to accept help carrying the duffel. The contents do not help Rook’s day.
Beau Latham surrenders with a statement about loving the community and due process and not recognizing the “portrayal” of himself on the internet. Ozzy DM’s me a screenshot of Beau’s pinky ring on the courthouse steps and a caption: imagine accessorizing for arraignment. I don’t laugh. I do breathe easier.
Coleman is the last to fall. He thinks he can outrun the mess. For twenty-four hours it looks like he can. Then Chloe and the DA walk into Club Greed’s back corridor with a judge’s signature and Devereaux’s cameras and a marina ledger that shows Laurel Nine billed for a private security crew on the night Arby died. Coleman sees Chloe and, for the first time, looks like a man who miscounted his moves.
Etta is arrested too, but not at Club Greed. Not on a yacht. At an office that doesn’t have a sign, in a building that probably smells like new paint. She has a lawyer on speed dial and a calm face that makes me think she’ll trade half the board for the other half. Gage texts the group chat: Hoy flipped. Conditional. She’s naming the conduit and the sign-offs. I type Gray? and Gage replies she says “orbit.” not “orders.” DA is patient. Of course he is. Saints take time.
Chloe keeps me looped in without giving me anything that would turn me into a witness I’m not ready to be. “We’ll need you later,” she says on the phone, steady. “Not for the past week. For the dock and the boat.”
“I’ll be there,” I say. “I was there.”
Two days after Bob’s arrest, my mother comes over with a bag of groceries and her wedding ring on a chain. We cook in silence for a while, chopping peppers and onions like they might confess under a knife.
“Did she know?” she asks finally. “Arby. About him and… that woman.”
“She did,” I say. “She tried to make him tell you. She tried to make him stop.”
My mother nods, tears starting finally, slow and steady. “Of course she did.” She looks at my crime wall, at the names and lines, at the red thread I haven’t cut yet. “Take it down when you’re ready,” she says. “Keep the picture you like in your head. Not the last one.”
I leave the wall up for now. I’m not finished with it. But that night I add one new card in the corner: KAREN. I draw a circle around it and a line to ME and leave that line bold.