Chapter 9 - The Woman in the Coat —
Vanessa came to the hospital the next day.
I saw her from behind a partly closed blind before anyone told me she was there.
Cream-colored sweater. Dark glasses. A small bouquet.
No burns.
No oxygen.
Just a faint cough she seemed to remember whenever someone looked at her.
Ortiz intercepted her near the nurses’ station.
“I wanted to leave these for the family,” Vanessa said.
“Which family member were you hoping to see?”
“Daniel, if he’s here.”
“He isn’t.”
Vanessa glanced toward the corridor.
“Was she ever conscious?”
The same question.
Different voice.
Ortiz asked what she meant.
“After they brought her in. Daniel keeps torturing himself.”
“How?”
“He thinks she might have misunderstood what happened.”
I gripped the bed rail.
Misunderstood.
As if I had mistaken the direction he walked.
As if a locked door were a disagreement.
Ortiz kept her voice even.
“What do you think happened?”
Vanessa’s face softened into something almost tender.
“He had to make a split-second decision.”
“Between what?”
“People were dying.”
“Were you?”
Vanessa stopped.
The hallway went quiet.
“I couldn’t breathe.”
“Were you able to walk?”
“That doesn’t mean I was safe.”
“No,” Ortiz said. “It doesn’t.”
Vanessa left the flowers and walked away.
But outside, she didn’t go straight to her car.
She called Pike.
Investigators heard him answer.
“The police took the maintenance computer.”
Vanessa stopped beside a concrete planter.
“Did you clean it?”
“I told you I couldn’t get into everything.”
“You said you handled the records.”
“I handled what Mercer told me to handle.”
Vanessa looked around.
“Don’t say his name.”
For the first time, I heard fear strip the polish from her voice.
Pike had been told the changes were part of a harmless insurance play. A small loss. A temporary closure. Money to cover debts and renovations.
Now a woman was supposedly dead.
He wanted out.
Vanessa told him to keep his mouth shut.
He hung up.
That afternoon, Ortiz asked me to review a list of hotel invoices.
One payment stood out.
The vendor name was unfamiliar, but the mailing address wasn’t.
I knew that little brick house.
I had helped Vanessa carry a couch through its front door.
“Here,” I said.
Ortiz leaned in.
May you like
The hotel had paid Vanessa’s company for safety consulting.
Three days before Daniel bought my policy.
