"DON'T OPEN IT!"

Carver separated them after that.

Diane was moved to the dining room.

Lucy stayed in the kitchen with Jack and a second officer named Reyes, who brought Lucy a cup of coffee from the machine behind the counter and set it in front of her without comment.

Mark came back downstairs.

He had been up in the office again, this time with one of the officers.

He stood in the kitchen doorway and looked at Lucy across the room.

He looked like a man trying to remember something he had been certain of.

"The letter," he said.

"She showed me a letter."

"There was no letter."

"I read it.

It was your handwriting."

Lucy wrapped both hands around the coffee cup.

"Then she forged it."

Mark was quiet for a long moment.

"Why didn't you fight harder?

When she locked you in — why didn't you—"

"I screamed for two days." Lucy's voice was level.

"The freezer is insulated.

The restaurant was closed for a renovation that first week.

By the time it reopened, I had lost my voice." She looked at him.

"I tried, Mark."

He sat down across from her.

Jack was between them, and Mark looked at his son for a moment before he spoke again.

"She told me you had been taking money.

That you had been planning to leave for months.

That the letter was proof you had been thinking about it for a long time." He stopped.

"I believed her."

"I know you did."

"Lucy—"

"I'm not angry at you for that." She said it carefully, like she was testing whether it was true.

"She was your wife.

She had a letter in my handwriting.

She had a story that fit everything you were afraid of." A pause.

"I'm angry.

But not at you.

Not for that part."

Reyes had moved to the far end of the kitchen, giving them space without leaving the room.

Jack said, "What part are you angry about?"

Both adults looked at him.

"You said not for that part," Jack said.

"So what part?"

Lucy looked at Mark.

Mark looked at the table.

"Seven months," Lucy said.

"Seven months, and you never — not once — did you come to the restaurant?

Did you look anywhere?

Did you file a missing person report?"

"She said you didn't want to be found.

That you had made that clear in the letter."

"I was fifty feet from your house, Mark." Her voice stayed quiet.

It was worse that way.

"I was in the freezer of the restaurant where you eat lunch twice a week.

I was fifty feet away."

The refrigeration units hummed.

Jack stood up from his chair, walked around the table, and sat down next to his mother on her side.

He didn't say anything.

He just moved.

Mark watched his son do it.

"I need to ask you something," Mark said.

"The money Diane mentioned.

The transfer.

Did you take money from the joint account?"

"Yes."

He waited.

"I found the second set of books six weeks before I disappeared," Lucy said.

"I had been quietly gathering records.

I transferred forty-two thousand dollars out of the joint account because I had calculated that was approximately what she had already taken from Jack's fund.

I was going to put it directly into a separate account in Jack's name.

I was going to show you everything and let you decide what to do." She paused.

"I came to the restaurant that night to get the laptop.

I knew the password.

I knew where she kept it.

I needed the files as evidence."

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

Lucy looked at him for a long moment.

"Because I had tried.

Twice.

And both times, you told me I was jealous.

That I couldn't accept that you had moved on.