Chapter 4 - The Woman in Apartment 6B
Lila Grant lived in a building that smelled of boiled cabbage and floor wax. She opened her door two inches, saw Nora, and tried to close it again.
“June sent me,” Nora said.
The chain remained in place.
“June is in the hospital.”
“I know.”
“She may not survive.”
Lila stared through the gap. Her hair was white and cropped close to her head. One side of her face sagged slightly, the result of a stroke or an old injury.
“He found you already,” Lila said.
“Who?”
“Adrian.”
The door opened.
Lila carried a brass cane into the living room. Every wall was covered with photographs of Harbor House: the inn before renovation, the inn after renovation, June standing beside workers, June holding a ribbon-cutting scissors.
“I was the bookkeeper,” Lila said. “For seventeen years. I knew every dollar that entered that trust.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I didn’t. I was pushed.”
Lila lowered herself into a chair. “Adrian found errors in my work.”
“Were there errors?”
“Three missing invoices. All created after Adrian took control of the accounts. He said he would report me unless I signed a confession.”
Nora sat opposite her. “Did you?”
“I signed nothing. He came to my apartment that night with a bottle of wine and a folder. He told me June had approved the transfers. He said if I challenged him, he would make sure my son lost his scholarship.”
“Your son?”
“He was sixteen.”
Lila’s hands tightened around the cane. “Adrian knew where he went to school. He knew how much my rent cost. He knew exactly which fear to touch.”
“What did you do?”
“I made copies.”
From beneath a cushion, Lila pulled a small cassette recorder and a stack of envelopes. The top envelope bore Adrian’s handwriting.
“He came back three weeks later,” she said. “This time he forgot the recorder was running.”
The tape hissed, then Adrian’s voice filled the room.
“June will sign the amendment. She has no choice.”
Lila’s younger voice answered, “She said she won’t.”
“Then I’ll tell the board she’s losing her mind.”
“And if they believe her?”
“They won’t. People believe numbers. They believe confidence. They believe the person who arrives with a plan.”
Nora leaned closer.
“What plan?” Lila asked on the recording.
Adrian laughed. “I’m building a new life. Harbor House pays for it. Sloane gets the resort. Nora gets the house and a story about how she drove me away.”
The tape clicked off.
Nora sat very still.
Lila watched her. “There’s something else.”
“There always is.”
“Sloane wasn’t part of the beginning.”
“What does that mean?”
“Adrian met her after he started stealing. She worked for the architecture firm designing Tideglass. She noticed the money coming through Blue Current and asked questions. Instead of silencing her, he recruited her.”
“He recruited his mistress?”
“He promised her a life that looked expensive from the outside.”
Lila pushed another envelope across the table. Inside was a photograph of Sloane standing beside an older woman at a wedding.
“That’s Sloane’s mother,” Nora said.
“She died last year. Sloane inherited a small house in Oregon, but Adrian convinced her to sell it and invest in the resort.”
Nora looked again at the photograph. Sloane’s smile was different from the one on the beach. Younger. Open.
“How much did she invest?”
“Everything.”
Nora’s phone rang. Detective Paul Reyes was calling from the hospital.
“Ms. Ellis, I’m sorry. June’s condition changed.”
Nora stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
“Is she conscious?”
“For a few minutes. She asked for you.”
Nora thanked Lila and hurried into the hall. Mara met her downstairs, keys in hand.
“The hospital?”
Nora nodded.
Rain streaked the windshield as they drove. She held the cassette recorder against her chest, but the words inside it had already changed everything. Adrian had not merely found a lover. He had built a system around betrayal, then taught everyone in it to call the system love.
June was awake when Nora entered the intensive care room. Her eyes moved from Nora’s face to the recorder in her hand.
“I found Lila,” Nora said.
June blinked once.
“She gave me proof.”
June’s fingers trembled against the sheet. Nora leaned close.
“Did Adrian know about the tapes?”
June shook her head.
“Did he know about the key?”
Another shake.
June reached for the notepad beside the bed. Her hand barely obeyed her. She wrote three uneven letters: SLO.
“Sloane?” Nora asked.
June nodded, then wrote: NOT ALL.
Nora stared at the words.
June pressed the pen down again. This time she wrote: ASK HER.
The heart monitor began to chirp faster. A nurse hurried in, and Nora stepped back as the room filled with blue scrubs and urgent commands.
Through the glass, June found Nora’s gaze and lifted two fingers.
Two days, Nora realized. Or two names. Or two warnings.
Before the nurse pulled the curtain, June mouthed one final word.
May you like
Run.
Nora ran into the hallway, not away from the truth but toward the woman who had helped Adrian bury it.
