Chapter 6: Magazine Street
The Voss property on Magazine Street was a narrow three-story house set back from the street behind a iron fence and two old magnolia trees that had grown into each other over the decades until it was impossible to say where one ended and the other began.
Ronan's car stopped half a block away.
Briggs was in the front seat.
Tessa was in the back beside Ronan, which was not where she had expected to be forty minutes ago, but Ronan had looked at her when he stood to leave and said simply, "You're part of this now," and she had not argued because he was right.
"Reyes has eyes on the back of the property," Briggs said.
"Two men inside that we can confirm.
Celeste is on the second floor.
She's moving — he can see her shadow through the curtain."
"She's not restrained," Ronan said.
"Doesn't look like it."
"Gerald wouldn't restrain her.
He'd want her comfortable enough to be convincing if anyone came to the door." Ronan looked at the house.
"He'd tell her it was a social visit.
That he was worried about her.
That he just needed her to stay for a few hours."
"She'd believe him?" Tessa asked.
"Celeste is seventy-one years old and she has known Gerald Voss for forty years.
She thinks of him as a family friend." His voice was flat.
"She doesn't know what he did."
Tessa looked at the lit window on the second floor.
"She's going to have to know," she said quietly.
"Yes." He paused.
"Tonight."
Briggs turned in his seat.
"How do you want to do this?"
"I go to the front door," Ronan said.
"Alone.
Gerald expects me to be angry and reactive.
I won't be." He looked at Briggs.
"You and Reyes cover the back.
Victor Voss does not leave this property tonight."
"And me?" Tessa asked.
Ronan looked at her for a moment.
"You stay in the car."
"No."
His expression didn't change.
"Tessa—"
"He threatened me on the phone twenty minutes ago.
He knows who I am.
If he looks out a window and sees me sitting in your car, that tells him something." She held his gaze.
"But if I'm not in the car, he doesn't know where I am.
That's better for you."
A beat passed.
"Stay close to Briggs," Ronan said.
He got out of the car and walked toward the house alone, unhurried, as if he were arriving for dinner.
Tessa and Briggs went around the back.
Reyes was a compact man in a dark jacket crouched near the rear gate.
He nodded at Briggs and pointed at the back door — wooden, older, the kind that would be loud if forced.
They waited.
Inside the house, they heard the front door open.
Then Gerald Voss's voice, carrying easily through the old walls: "Ronan.
I didn't expect you quite this quickly."
"You said six o'clock.
I'm efficient." Ronan's voice was calm.
Almost pleasant.
"Is Celeste well?"
"She's perfectly fine.
Come in."
A pause.
Footsteps.
The sound of a door closing.
Then, from somewhere above: Celeste's voice, surprised and warm.
"Ronan?
What are you doing here, sweetheart?"
"I came to take you home, Aunt Celeste."
A longer pause.
Gerald Voss again, his tone shifting slightly: "Ronan, we should talk first.
In private."
"We can talk in front of Celeste.
I don't have secrets from her."
"I think you'll find you want to have this particular conversation privately."
"I think," Ronan said, "that you overestimate how much you're holding."
Silence.
Then Gerald Voss's voice, lower and harder: "The letter, Ronan.
Did you bring it?"
"I brought something better."
Tessa heard a sound she couldn't immediately identify.
Then she recognized it: the soft click of a phone being placed on a hard surface.
A phone already recording.
"I brought a question," Ronan said.
"The night my mother d*ed.
You were in that house.
You told the police you arrived after she fell.
But there's a witness who says your car was already in the drive when they walked past at eight forty-seven.
My mother d*ed between eight thirty and nine, according to the coroner." A pause.
"So I want to know, Gerald.
What time did you actually arrive?"
The silence that followed was different from the others.
It had weight.
Victor Voss's voice came from somewhere nearby — he had been in the room the whole time.
"Dad.
Don't."
"Quiet," Gerald said.
"Dad—"
"I said quiet." Gerald's voice had lost its drawing-room smoothness.
"Ronan.
You have a letter written by a frightened old woman who saw nothing and understood less.
You have a witness who has stayed silent for fourteen years because they know what silence is worth.
You have nothing that will hold up."
"Then you have nothing to worry about," Ronan said.
"Let Celeste go home."
"After you give me the letter."
"I don't have the letter with me."
"Then we wait."
"We're done waiting," Ronan said.
The back door opened from the inside.
Celeste Callahan stood in the doorway in a pale blue cardigan, looking at Briggs and Tessa with an expression of profound confusion.
"There are people in Gerald's garden," she said to no one in particular.
"Yes, ma'am," Briggs said.
"We're here to take you home."
She looked at Tessa.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Tessa.
I cooked dinner tonight."
Celeste blinked.
Then, with the particular dignity of a woman who has navigated confusing situations for seven decades: "Well.
I suppose I'd better get my coat."
Inside the house, Gerald Voss had gone very quiet.
And in that quiet, Tessa heard something she had not expected: Victor Voss's voice, low and unsteady, saying to his father: "This is over.
It was over the moment the food didn't reach him.
I'm not — I won't—"
"Victor—"
"I'm not going to prison for you." His voice cracked on the last word.
May you like
"I was nineteen when you made me help you.
I have been carrying this for fourteen years and I am done."
