Chapter 3 - The Picture in the Window
By sunrise, the photograph of Mave's studio had acquired a different kind of cruelty. It showed the yellow lamp she had bought from a thrift store, the hand-lettered sign June had made for her first anniversary in business, and the row of miniature cardboard buildings in the window. Whoever had taken it had stood close enough to see inside. They had looked directly at a life Mave had built before she met Silas.
She forwarded the image to the police sergeant using the case number he'd supplied. Then she called June.
“Don't go to my studio,” Mave said before her friend could ask a question. “Someone's watching it.”
“Then they can watch me from the sidewalk while I call the cops.”
“June.”
“All right. I won't go. Tell me what's happening.”
Mave told her the important parts: the televised marriage, the forced entry, the second threat, and the hotel. June said nothing for an unusually long time.
“You once told me Silas made you feel like the only person in the room,” she said finally.
“He was very good at making sure there wasn't anybody else in the room.”
“You want me to tell you he's garbage?”
“Not yet. I need you to help me remember which of my files are worth a stranger breaking a door for.”
June was her business partner in everything except paperwork. She took photographs of old buildings while Mave made measured drawings for architects who wanted to restore them. Most days, their greatest hazard was a municipal records office with a broken photocopier. But for the past six weeks they'd been documenting Pier Nineteen, a brick customs warehouse slated for redevelopment by the Creel Harbor Foundation.
“We have the south stair survey,” June said. “The window schedules. Your condition report. Those terrible photographs of the east gate.”
Mave sat upright. “The east gate.”
The city inspection record said the gate had been permanently welded shut in February. When they'd photographed it in October, fresh tire tracks crossed the concrete beneath it. Someone had scraped off the newer seal and painted the gate to resemble rusted metal. Mave had asked the project coordinator whether the warehouse was still being used. He'd said no, then offered an inexplicably generous fee if she would submit her report without the pictures.
She had refused. The unedited photographs and original memory card were locked in her studio drawer.
“I thought they were avoiding a permit,” Mave whispered.
“Maybe they are.”
“Or they're moving something through a condemned building while paying us to certify it empty.”
“Which is a reason to talk to the police,” June said, “not a reason for us to play detectives.”
Mave agreed. She spent the next hour preparing an inventory from her laptop, which she had carried out of the townhouse when she fled—then stopped with a sick little laugh. She had not carried a laptop. It was still beside the cold pasta. The screen in the hotel belonged to a courtesy workstation that she hadn't touched. Her inventory would have to come from memory and June's copies.
That mistake bothered her. Fear could make her accept a convenient version of events too. She wrote down what she actually knew, left blanks where she didn't, and asked June to do the same.
At nine, the police sergeant called. Detectives had entered the townhouse with the property manager. They'd found the broken front door, smashed bowl, and evidence of the struggle. One suspect had been taken to the hospital with a shoulder injury, but the other two had disappeared. The police could meet Mave at her studio while she collected belongings and describe how to submit the preservation photographs.
“Will Silas be there?” the sergeant asked.
“No.”
“That's your choice. We'll meet you at ten-thirty.”
At ten, Silas arrived outside her hotel door carrying nothing. She opened it with the chain engaged.
“You don't have to speak to me,” he said. “I came to tell you Vivien is willing to call you. She's with her sister right now.”
“Her sister?”
“Iris. Someone ran her car off the road yesterday. That's why we were at the hospital.”
Mave looked at him through the gap. “You could have texted four words: I'm at a hospital.”
“I should have.”
“Instead I saw you on television and found out you were married.”
“Yes.”
“Was Iris's accident connected to this?”
“I think so. I don't have proof.”
“Thank you for using those words.” She started to close the door, then stopped. “Did you know the Creel Harbor Foundation hired my studio to survey Pier Nineteen?”
Silas's expression changed so sharply that she felt the floor tilt beneath her.
“Mave, listen to me.”
“No. Answer.”
“I knew the foundation was involved. I didn't know they'd given you the survey.”
“Who controls the pier?”
“Creel has the lease. My company handles some shipping there.”
“Some?”
“More than I should have allowed.”
Mave shut the door. When she opened it again, she'd removed the chain and put on her coat, but not for him. “I'm meeting the police. You can tell them about your shipments. If you don't, I'll tell them you wouldn't.”
He watched her step into the corridor. “You really are leaving.”
“I left at three in the morning. You were just too busy explaining why I shouldn't.”
At the studio, an officer waited beside June's hatchback. Nothing appeared disturbed, but the lock bore a narrow gouge. Inside, their paper samples and half-finished models sat precisely where they'd left them. Mave photographed the mark before opening her desk drawer with a key from her own ring.
The camera and memory card were there. The folder containing the Pier Nineteen report was not.
June searched their filing cabinet. “I saw it yesterday.”
Mave opened the drawer again. A white rectangle had been left beneath the camera case: the carbon copy of a courier slip bearing the Creel Foundation's blue seal. In the recipient field was one name.
May you like
VIVIEN CARBONE.
For the first time, Mave wondered whether Silas's wife was the person who wanted her destroyed—or the only other woman who knew why.
