Chapter 6 - The Water Was Never Safe
At two in the morning, Detective Serrano spread a map across her desk. Red circles marked neighborhoods where the Keene Civic Fund had financed replacement housing after the river flood.
"Morrow Street has no apartments," she said. "Just warehouses and a laboratory that used to test drinking water."
"Used to?" Julian asked.
"The testing contract was canceled after a series of clean reports. Three months later, residents started reporting strange smells and sick children. Nora requested the old lab records the week before she went missing."
Julian pressed his palms into the desk. The fund had paid for the new water lines. He had signed the project budget himself.
"I saw a certificate saying the water passed," he said.
"We all saw the certificate. The question is what the original samples said."
Faye sat with Sadie on a bench by the door. The girl had fallen asleep with Julian's suit jacket across her knees. Every few minutes she opened her eyes to make sure nobody had moved.
"Nora kept a notebook," Faye said. "Blue cover. She hid it where Sadie could find it without knowing why."
Sadie stirred. "The storybook box."
"What storybook box?" Julian asked.
"At our house. Mom keeps our old books in a red metal box under the stairs. She told me never to throw them out."
Serrano arranged a safe place for Faye and Sadie to stay under police supervision. Julian wanted to go with them, but Sadie watched him without smiling.
"Will you tell Camille where we're going?" she asked.
"No."
"Even if she cries?"
"Even then."
The girl considered that. "Okay."
Julian returned to the hotel at dawn. Camille was waiting in his suite in a silk robe, drinking coffee as if she had spent an ordinary evening at a fundraiser.
"You made me look like a monster," she said.
"Faye was tied up. Nora is missing. What part was I supposed to ignore?"
Camille set down her cup. "You've always been easy to steer when Nora was involved. That's why she left you."
"You told me she was dead."
"I told you what the police believed."
Julian opened the ring box he had carried in his pocket for nine years. It was empty, of course. Nora's ring was now sealed in an evidence envelope.
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"One more thing," he said. "How did you know that little girl had taken something before anyone saw the ring?"
Camille's hand slipped off the coffee cup.
