Chapter 4: What Adrian Knew
Adrian arrived the next morning carrying coffee he had not made himself and wearing the expression of a man preparing to perform sorrow for an audience of one.
He stopped when he saw Jonah seated in the corner.
"What are you doing here?" The coffee cup shifted in his grip.
"Waiting for you," Jonah said.
He stood, but did not offer his hand.
"I have some questions, Mr.
Voss.
About the renovation account."
Adrian set the coffee on the windowsill.
He did not look at me.
"I've already spoken to the police."
"You spoke to the responding officers the night of the fall.
This is different." Jonah opened the folder on the table — the same folder he had shown Cordelia the night before.
"Sit down, please."
"I'll stand."
"All right." Jonah turned a page.
"The Ellison payment.
Forty-two hundred dollars, authorized through the estate maintenance fund.
Your mother's signature is on the authorization.
But the account requires two signatories for any payment over two thousand dollars." He looked up.
"Your signature is the second one."
Adrian's jaw tightened.
"I sign dozens of estate documents.
My mother manages the accounts.
I trust her judgment."
"You signed this one four days before your wife fell from the balcony."
"That is a coincidence."
"Ellison is missing."
"I don't know anyone named Ellison."
"You signed a payment to him."
Adrian's voice dropped.
"I want a lawyer present."
"You're not under arrest," Jonah said.
"You can leave anytime you want.
But I'd encourage you to think carefully about what your mother told you this payment was for.
Because when we find Ellison — and we will find him — he is going to tell us who hired him and what he was paid to do.
And the person who cooperates first is always in a better position than the person who waits."
The room held its breath.
Adrian looked at me for the first time since he had walked in.
He looked at my face, my open eyes, the cast that encased everything from my collarbone to my ankles.
Something moved across his expression — not guilt exactly, but the cousin of it.
The thing that lives next door to guilt and pretends it isn't home.
"She found something," he said finally.
His voice was low.
"Before the fall.
She told me she had found something in the accounts.
I told my mother."
Jonah did not move.
"What did you tell her exactly?"
"I told her Lily was going to cause problems." Adrian's hand went to the back of his neck.
"I didn't know what my mother would do.
I didn't ask."
"You didn't ask," Jonah repeated.
"I thought she would talk to her lawyers.
Handle it legally." His voice cracked on the last word, as if he could hear how it sounded.
"I didn't know about the balcony."
Jonah closed the folder.
"But you knew about the insurance policy."
Adrian went very still.
"The seven million dollar policy on your wife's life," Jonah said.
"Taken out fourteen months ago.
Forged signature on the application.
You are the sole beneficiary." He picked up the folder.
"Did you know about that one?"
Adrian's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
"I need you to think very carefully before you answer," Jonah said.
"Because the detectives from Major Crimes are going to ask you the same question in approximately two hours.
And whatever you say to me right now, you should be prepared to say to them."
Adrian sat down.
He sat down the way a building settles — slowly, in stages, as if each part of him was giving up separately.
He put his face in his hands.
I lay still and listened and did not feel sorry for him.
He had told his mother I was going to cause problems.
He had handed me to her like a problem to be solved.
Whatever he had imagined she would do, he had chosen not to imagine too carefully.
That choice had a name, and the name was not ignorance.
"She planned all of it," he said into his hands.
"Didn't she."
It was not a question.
Jonah did not answer it.
"The detectives will be here at eleven," he said.
"I'd suggest you call your own lawyer before then.
Not the family attorney.
Your own."
Adrian lifted his face.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"Is Lily going to be all right?"
Jonah looked at him for a long moment.
"That," he said, "is entirely up to her doctors."
He picked up his folder and left Adrian alone in the room with me.
I lay still and breathed and let the machines speak.
Beep.
Breath.
Beep.
May you like
Breath.
Adrian did not reach for my hand.
