Chapter 3 — WHAT NORA NEVER SAID

The first thing I did was change every password I could remember.

Mortgage.

Bank.

Email.

Pension.

Insurance.

Cloud storage.

The account I use to pay the water bill.

Raines put someone from the financial crimes unit next to me while I worked through the list.

Every time I thought I was finished, another account surfaced.

It stopped feeling like protecting my finances and started feeling like an inventory of how exposed my life had been the whole time.

Somebody had my Social Security number.

Somebody had copies of my identification.

Somebody knew my mortgage balance.

Somebody knew the equity in my walls.

Somebody knew the names of my insurers.

Somebody knew enough about me to be me in an email chain for six weeks.

And according to Trent, my mother had not designed any of it.

By the time I drove home it was raining.

The balloons were still wired to the fence.

A paper banner reading SILAS IS ONE had come loose at one end and was hanging down into the wet grass.

I stood on the patio looking at it.

Twenty-four hours earlier I had pictured those decorations behind photographs we would keep.

Now they looked like a crime scene somebody had failed to clear.

Nora opened the back door.

"Ethan?"

I turned round.

She was in tracksuit bottoms and one of my old work shirts.

Silas was asleep against her shoulder.

"How is he?"

"Better."

She gave me a tired smile.

"He took a whole bottle."

I kissed his head.

Normal.

Just a warm sleeping baby.

That fact nearly took my legs out from under me.

Nora studied my face.

"What's happened."

I told her about the login attempt.

She went pale.

"After they were arrested?"

"Eleven minutes before Raines told me."

"Could your mother have done it from custody?"

"No."

"Trent?"

"He was in an interview room."

Her eyes widened.

"Then there's somebody else."

"Yes."

I locked the back door.

Then the side door.

Then the front.

Nora watched me do it.

"Ethan."

"Locksmith's coming at eight tomorrow."

"That's sensible."

"I should have done it in March."

She looked down at the floor.

The way she lowered her eyes made me stop moving.

"What."

"Nothing."

"Nora."

She sat down at the kitchen table.

I had learned to read that expression in the last twenty-four hours.

It was the face of somebody deciding whether the truth would cost more than the silence.

I sat down opposite her.

"No more protecting me from things I need to know."

"I wasn't protecting you."

"Then what."

She ran her thumb along the edge of Silas's blanket.

"I was protecting the marriage."

My heart went down.

"From my mother?"

"From all of it."

I waited.

Nora took a long breath.

"Your mother has had a key to this house since before he was born."

"I know. I gave it to her."

"She had copies cut."

I frowned.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I saw them."

"When?"

"Two months after Silas."

"Where?"

"In her handbag."

She described a ring with three identical brass keys on it.

One was ours.

The other two had little coloured tags.

"Did you ask her?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"That one was for Corinne."

I stared at her.

"Why would my aunt need a key to my house?"

"That is exactly what I asked."

Nora let out a short, unhappy laugh.

"She said family shouldn't have to knock."

Something went through me that I had to sit with for a second before I could speak.

I spend my working life reading policies.

Boundaries.

Exclusions.

What is covered and what is not.

And inside my own family I had somehow decided that having a boundary was rude.

"What else."

Nora hesitated.

"Nora."

"She started going into our bedroom."

My jaw set.

"For what."

"She said she was putting laundry away."

"But."

"I came up once and she had the drawer open where you keep the paperwork."

I knew the drawer.

Old tax returns.

Policy schedules.

A spare chequebook.

"Did she take anything?"

"I don't know."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did."

I stared at her.

"When?"

"February."

And then I remembered.

Nora had called me at work.

I had been standing in the rain on a flooded loss site outside Georgetown with a claims file getting wet in my hand.

She said Vivian had been going through drawers.

I said, Mum's nosy.

Then I changed the subject to what we were doing for dinner.

A wave of shame went over me that I did not particularly want to survive.

"I remember."

Nora nodded.

"I stopped telling you after that."

It hurt precisely as much as it deserved to.

"You thought I wouldn't believe you."

"I thought you would believe me."

She looked at me properly.

"But I also thought you'd explain it away."

There is a difference.

And she was right.

I reached across the table.

"I'm sorry."

She took my hand.

"I know."

"No."

I shook my head.

"I need to actually say it."

"I failed you."

"Ethan."

"I did."

"I sent my mother money every month because she told me she was helping you."

"I let her keep a key."

"I let her come and go."

"And when you told me it was too much I filed it under normal mother-in-law nonsense."

Nora's eyes filled.

"I should have listened the first time."

She looked at me for a while.

Then she said, "I should have pushed harder."

"No."

"You were doing sixty hours a week."

"That doesn't matter."

"It does."

"No."

I held onto her hand.

"I'm not going to let this turn into the two of us arguing about which of us should have stopped somebody else."

Something in both of us let go a little when I said that.

For eleven months my mother had opened small cracks and then encouraged each of us to blame ourselves for the draught.

I was starting to understand how deliberate that might have been.

Nora looked toward the hallway.

"There's something I have to show you."

She carried Silas upstairs and put him down.

Then she went into our wardrobe and brought a shoebox off the top shelf.

Photographs.

Receipts.

Notes.

Screenshots.

I stared at it.

"What is this."

"I started keeping a record."

"When?"

"Six months ago."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

Nora handed me a notebook.

Every page was dates and times and one line of plain description.

March 2.

V opened post addressed to Ethan.

March 9.

V asked again whether Ethan has life insurance and how much.

March 14.

V said Nora should not be on the deed because Nora did not pay for the house.

March 18.

V asked where the original deed is kept.

March 26.

V brought Trent into Ethan's study while Nora was feeding the baby.

I stopped reading.

"She brought Trent into my study?"

Nora nodded.

"Doing what?"

"They said they were looking for a phone charger."

"There has never been a phone charger in that room."

"I know."

I kept going.

April 4.

V says Ethan wants her to manage the household money.

April 11.

V asked Nora to sign a blank reimbursement form.

April 19.

Trent photographing papers on Ethan's desk.

I looked up.

"You saw him do that?"

"He had his phone flat over a document."

"Which document?"

"I couldn't see."

"Did you say anything?"

"I asked him what he was doing."

"And?"

"He said he was photographing your business card."

I shut my eyes.

The evidence had been standing in my house for the best part of a year, holding a phone.

I kept reading.

May 2.

Corinne says Ethan should put the house in V's name because V built this family.

May 8.

V tells Nora that wives come and go but mothers stay.

May 16.

V asks Nora what she would do if Ethan died.

My stomach turned right over.

"What did she mean by that?"

"She said it like it was nothing."

"How?"

"She was filling the kettle."

Nora looked uncomfortable saying it out loud.

"She asked whether I knew who would get the house if something happened to you."

I stared at her.

"What did you say?"

"That I didn't want to talk about it."

"And she said?"

"That I should learn, because women who depend on men usually get a surprise."

I stood up.

I could not stay sitting down for that sentence.

"Why is my mother asking my wife about my death?"

"I don't know."

Nora opened the shoebox again.

"There's more."

She handed me a small digital voice recorder.

I recognised it.

It was the one she used for lectures during her nursing revalidation.

"You recorded her."

"Twice."

"Why?"

"Because I'd started to wonder whether I was making it up."

She pressed play.

The first recording opened on kitchen sounds.

Then my mother's voice, perfectly level.

You need to understand something, Nora.

My son had that house before he had you.

Nora's voice answered.

I know that.

Vivian again.

If anything ever happens between the two of you, you don't get to walk off with what belongs to this family.

Nothing is happening between us.

They all say that.

Then a pause on the tape.

And then my mother said the sentence that lifted the hair on my arms.

That property will be protected one way or another.

The recording ended.

I looked at the little machine in my hand.

"When was this?"

"Seven weeks ago."

The second recording was worse.

Vivian was on the phone to somebody.

Nora had left the recorder on the counter and gone upstairs.

My mother's half of the conversation was completely clear.

No, he doesn't look closely.

Yes.

Monday works.

Because the birthday is Friday.

He'll be worn out and distracted.

A pause.

Then:

I've told you already.

Once the original is out of that house, the rest is straightforward.

It ended there.

I did not move for a while.

Nora whispered, "I didn't know what she meant."

"I thought it was some paperwork for the party."

I played the line again.

Once the original is out of that house.

The deed.

She meant the deed.

I called Raines.

She came out with a second investigator, a quiet man called Ortiz, and they listened to both recordings twice.

Ortiz asked Nora careful questions about the phone call.

"Could you hear the other person?"

"No."

"Man or woman?"

"I couldn't tell."

"Did she use a name?"

"No."

Raines went through the notebook page by page.

"This is extremely helpful."

Nora looked almost apologetic.

"I wish there was more."

"There is more here than most people ever have."

Raines put her finger on the May 16 entry.

"This one interests me."

I did not like the word interests.

"Why."

"Because there was an insurance document in your cousin's folder."

I stared at her.

"You said that yesterday."

"Yes."

"What didn't you say?"

Raines looked at Ortiz.

Then she opened her bag and took out a photocopy.

It was a beneficiary change request.

My life policy is eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Nora is the beneficiary.

At least she is supposed to be.

The form named somebody else as primary.

Vivian Calloway.

I went numb from the wrists up.

"I never signed this."

"We know."

The signature looked like mine again.

This one was better than the one on the deed.

Considerably better.

Nora put her hand over her mouth.

"Was it submitted?"

Ortiz answered.

"It appears to be a draft."

"Appears?"

"We're confirming with the insurer in the morning."

I stared at the page.

And for the first time the house stopped being the biggest thing in the room.

"Why would my mother want to be on my life insurance."

Raines did not answer immediately.

"It could simply be part of an attempt to control multiple assets."

"Simply."

I looked at her.

"That is not a comforting word, detective."

"I know it isn't."

"My mother has been asking my wife what happens if I die."

"There is a forged beneficiary form with my name on it."

"And somebody tried to get into my mortgage account while she was in a holding cell."

Ortiz leaned forward.

"Which is exactly why we are being careful."

I looked at Nora.

She had gone grey.

Silas made a noise down the hall and she went to him without a word.

Raines closed the file.

"We'd also like to look at the devices in this house."

"Computers?"

"Computers."

"The alarm."

"Anything with a smart speaker in it."

"Anything that stores a login."

I nodded.

Then Nora came back into the doorway holding him.

"There's a tablet downstairs."

I looked at her.

"What tablet?"

"Your mother's."

"She left it here on Friday."

We all went down.

It was on the sideboard by the patio door, under a stack of napkins printed with balloons.

Raines pulled gloves on.

"Nobody touch it."

The screen lit up when she moved it.

No passcode.

A messaging app was open.

Several threads down the side.

One contact had no name on it.

Just initials.

R.F.

Raines photographed the screen without touching it.

The last message had come in at 3:04 on Friday afternoon.

That was twenty-six minutes before I walked through the side gate.

Everything is in place.

Keep Ethan at work until six.

My stomach dropped.

I had left the office at ten past three.

That explained the look on my mother's face in the kitchen doorway.

Raines kept the camera on the screen.

Then a new message arrived while the four of us were standing there.

R.F.

I know Vivian is in custody.

Do not contact this number again.

Then a second one.

Get the rest out of the garage before he opens it.

I looked at Raines.

"Out of the what?"

Nora's face went completely blank.

Then she said, very quietly, "Ethan."

"What."

"There's a cabinet in the garage."

I looked at her.

"We don't have a cabinet in the garage."