Chapter 5 - The House in La Jolla
The plan was Maya’s, not mine.
She reminded me of that three times.
“You are not bait.”
“I know.”
“You do not contact Christopher.”
“I know.”
“You do not enter your house.”
“I know.”
“You do not improvise.”
I looked at her.
“That one sounds personal.”
“It is.”
Police obtained judicial authorization for surveillance tied to the fraud investigation.
Evelyn arranged for a controlled message to reach Christopher’s attorney: the safe-deposit box had been opened, but one property document remained unlocated.
That was true.
My father’s recorder referenced “the original La Jolla deed packet,” but the packet was not in the box.
Christopher reacted within two hours.
He called Pamela.
Police were listening under warrant.
“Arthur hid it in the house.”
Pamela replied, “Samantha searched that house for months.”
“She did not know what she was looking for.”
“What are we looking for?”
“A blue folder.”
My pulse jumped.
I had seen it.
Years earlier.
My father kept blue legal folders in the library cabinet.
Maya looked at me.
“You know where?”
“I might.”
Christopher continued.
“The folder has the assignment schedule and the original partnership certificates.”
Pamela asked, “Why do we need originals if she’s dead?”
Christopher snapped, “Because Arthur put a kill switch in the trust.”
Evelyn whispered, “He knows.”
I felt cold.
Pamela said, “You told me the transfer was done.”
“It is, if we can prove Samantha had authority over the certificates.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then the Cross Hale documents are worthless.”
Pamela swore.
Then she said, “You buried her for worthless papers?”
The room went silent.
Maya lifted one finger.
There.
Direct evidence.
Christopher replied, “I buried her because you told me the dose would hold.”
My stomach turned.
Pamela hissed, “Lower your voice.”
He laughed.
“She’s six feet underground.”
Maya closed her eyes for half a second.
Then she began issuing instructions.
Christopher and Pamela drove to La Jolla that night.
Police allowed them inside.
The house had been processed and then discreetly reset.
Cameras captured everything.
I watched from a secure van two blocks away.
That was the house where my father taught me to swim.
Where my mother hosted Thanksgiving.
Where Christopher proposed to me in the garden.
Now my husband and my oldest friend were tearing open cabinets looking for the last piece of a theft.
Pamela entered the library first.
“She always kept the family photos in here,” she said.
Christopher ignored her.
He went directly to the lower cabinet.
He knew my father’s habits.
That realization hurt.
Pamela found the blue folder.
Christopher grabbed it.
Empty.
He stared.
“What?”
“There’s nothing.”
Pamela looked terrified.
“Then somebody already found it.”
Christopher’s face changed.
“Voss.”
“He ran.”
“Exactly.”
“You said he was handled.”
“I said he was scared.”
Pamela paced.
“What if Samantha told him something before—”
“She was unconscious.”
“Are you sure?”
Christopher turned.
“I watched her stop responding.”
I stopped breathing.
Maya whispered, “Stay with me.”
On the monitor, Pamela folded her arms.
“You should have checked her pulse yourself.”
Christopher snapped, “Your uncle signed the certificate.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Christopher froze.
Pamela’s face had changed.
“What?”
She stared at him.
“Malcolm never signed it.”
Christopher went pale.
“Then who did?”
Pamela smiled.
A terrible little smile.
“I did.”
Even Christopher looked shocked.
“You said he agreed.”
“I said I handled it.”
“You forged a physician’s signature?”
“You forged Samantha’s.”
“That’s different.”
Pamela laughed.
“No. It’s just the crime you understand.”
The argument escalated.
For the first time, I saw the fracture between them.
They were not partners united by love.
They were two frightened criminals who had mistaken shared secrets for loyalty.
Christopher said, “Where is Voss?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“You always know.”
Pamela stepped closer.
“And you always blame somebody else when your plan fails.”
Christopher moved toward Pamela.
She backed away.
“You promised me,” he said.
“Promised what?”
“That once Samantha was gone, this was over.”
Pamela laughed bitterly.
“You mean once Samantha was gone, I became useful again.”
“You are my wife.”
“On paper.”
My skin went cold.
Christopher stared.
Pamela continued.
“You married me when we were twenty-five because you needed access to my father’s company. Then you found Samantha.”
“That is not what happened.”
“It is exactly what happened.”
She lifted her chin.
“You never loved either of us. You love doors. People are just how you get through them.”
I felt something strange.
Not sympathy.
Recognition.
Christopher moved again.
Pamela pulled a small canister of pepper spray from her purse.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Maya radioed the arrest team.
Officers entered from three directions.
Christopher tried to run through the garden.
He made it twenty feet.
Pamela dropped the spray and raised her hands.
On the monitor, she began shouting before anyone asked a question.
“I’ll tell you everything!”
Christopher turned from the ground where officers held him.
“Shut up!”
Pamela screamed back.
“You buried the wrong woman!”
I closed my eyes.
He still did not know I was alive.
Then Maya’s radio crackled.
An officer had found a hidden compartment behind the library cabinet.
Inside was the blue folder.
And one more thing.
A letter from my father addressed to me.
Maya looked at the evidence photograph.
“What does it say?”
The front carried five words.
SAMANTHA — TRUST THE DOG WALKER.
I stared.
“My father didn’t have a dog.”
The arrest team also recovered my jewelry case from the Coronado condo.
Inside, beneath my mother’s pearl earrings, was a small velvet ring box.
It did not contain jewelry.
It held a second safe-deposit key.
Evelyn recognized the bank number immediately.
“My father had two boxes?” I asked.
“Apparently.”
Maya refused to speculate until the bank confirmed ownership.
Christopher had carried that jewelry case out of my house after my supposed death.
Whatever he believed the second key opened, he had considered it important enough to steal before the flowers on my grave had wilted.
May you like
For the first time, I felt something other than fear when I thought about his greed.
I felt contempt.
