Chapter 8 - A Meeting Behind Glass
Alma asked to see me in the police station's interview room. Her lawyer had arranged it as a family visit, with an officer seated outside. I agreed because I wanted answers, not because I wanted to forgive her.
She wore the same navy dress as the day of the attack. Without the apron, she looked smaller. I had never noticed how she used silence as a weapon until I stopped rushing to fill it.
“Is Elena telling people I tried to kill her?” she asked.
“She told the detective what happened.”
“She's turned you against me.”
“No. I walked into that room.”
Alma flinched at the memory. Good, I thought. Then I hated myself for feeling satisfaction.
I put a photocopy of Dad's note on the table. “Why was he afraid of you?”
“He was confused after the first heart attack.”
“He wrote that note after the fire, before his last heart attack. I checked the date with Ruth.”
“You've been talking to that woman.”
“She's a witness, Mom. Not an enemy.”
Alma leaned across the table. “Your father wanted to ruin everything we'd built. He would've left residents with nowhere to go. I saved that place. I saved you.”
“You hit my wife.”
“Your wife was about to turn over records she didn't understand.”
“There are fake employees taking paychecks. That doesn't require a degree in accounting to understand.”
She stared at the copied note. “He never knew what was good for this family.”
I asked her one question I'd rehearsed all morning. “Who locked the side exit at Alder House?”
All the color left her face. “I won't answer that.”
“June Bell died there.”
“People die in fires.”
The cruelty of that sentence was so casual I almost didn't hear it.
I stood to leave. Alma called my name, softer now.
“I know where the money is,” she said. “I can get it back. But you have to stop Elena before she opens the second envelope.”
May you like
I turned around slowly.
There had only been one envelope in the bedroom.
