Chapter 7: Two O'Clock
Sarah didn't go to the arraignment.
She went to her office instead.
She had been away for two days and there were things that needed her attention — real things, ordinary things, the kind of work that reminded her she had a life that existed entirely outside of Mark Thompson.
She answered emails.
She reviewed a project proposal.
She had a call with a client in Boston that ran twenty minutes over because the client wanted to talk through a concern she'd raised three weeks ago, and Sarah walked her through it carefully, and at the end the client said, "I don't know what I'd do without you," and Sarah said, "You'd be fine," and meant it.
At two-fifteen, Grace sent a text: *Arraignment complete.
Charges filed.
Fraud, wire fraud, identity theft, and one count of @buse of financial instruments.
Bail set.
His attorney posted immediately.*
Sarah read it at her desk.
Set the phone face-down.
Picked up her pen.
Put it down again.
Her assistant knocked on the open door.
"You have a three o'clock.
Do you want me to push it?"
"No," Sarah said.
"I'll be ready."
She was.
At four-thirty, Patricia Hale called.
"I wanted to tell you myself," Patricia said.
"The board met this morning.
We're pursuing full civil recovery in addition to supporting the criminal case.
Our legal team will be in contact with your attorney about coordinating." A pause.
"I also want to say — the way you handled yourself last night, in that restaurant, under those circumstances — that was remarkable."
"I didn't feel remarkable," Sarah said.
"No," Patricia said.
"That's usually how it works."
After the call, Sarah sat in her office as the afternoon light shifted across the floor.
She thought about the restaurant.
The sl@p.
The torn blouse.
The phones coming out.
The laughter.
She thought about Daniel's jacket settling over her shoulders.
She thought about Ruth's pen moving across the notepad.
She thought about Lena's text.
*He told me he'd been hurt before.*
She thought about the storage unit.
The files with her name on them.
The fake names.
The second phone.
The four-minute window he had missed.
She thought about three years.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered it without thinking.
"Sarah." Mark's voice.
Quieter than last night.
The hardness was still there but it had a different quality now — compressed, like something under pressure.
"I need you to listen to me."
"I'm listening."
"I can give you information.
About the clients.
About where the money went, all of it, every transfer.
I can make this easier for the DA.
In exchange, I need you to tell them you believe the account in your name was a misunderstanding.
That you may have signed something without realizing—"
"No," Sarah said.
"Sarah—"
"No, Mark." She kept her voice even.
"I'm not going to do that.
You registered a loan in my name without my knowledge.
I'm not going to tell anyone it was a misunderstanding, because it wasn't."
"I'm trying to give you something here."
"I don't want anything from you." She paused.
"Call your attorney.
Tell him what you just told me.
If you have information that's useful to the DA, that's a conversation for them.
Not for me."
A long silence.
"You've changed," he said.
There was something in it that might have been genuine — not admiration, not regret exactly, but a kind of recognition.
The acknowledgment of something he hadn't expected.
"Yes," she said.
"I have."
She ended the call.
She sat for another moment.
Then she picked up her phone and called Daniel.
He answered on the first ring.
"He called me," she said.
"He tried to make a deal."
"What did you say?"
"No."
A pause.
"Are you all right?"
She looked out her office window at the city in the late afternoon.
Ordinary.
Continuous.
Entirely indifferent to Mark Thompson.
"Yes," she said.
And this time she meant it completely.
"I made dinner," Daniel said.
"If you want to come over."
May you like
She picked up her coat from the back of her chair.
"I'm on my way," she said.
