Chapter 3 - The SignatureDetective Mara Sato arrived at Aster Salon without a police escort.
She was forty-three, with dark hair pulled into a low knot and a face that revealed very little.
Adrian met her at the rear entrance.
"You look terrible," she said.
"Good to see you too."
"Where is she?"
"Resting upstairs."
Mara studied him.
"Before I see her, tell me why you've been hiding her."
"I haven't."
"Then why didn't you bring her to us three days ago?"
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
"Because the first time I mentioned the police, she crawled through a broken bathroom window and disappeared."
Mara's expression softened slightly.
"All right."
He handed her his phone.
The photograph of Wink in the salon was still displayed.
Mara examined it.
"Threat?"
"Three messages. All anonymous."
"Have you preserved them?"
"Yes."
"Good. Don't delete anything."
She looked toward the stairs.
"Does she know I'm here?"
"Not yet."
"Then ask her before bringing me upstairs."
Adrian frowned.
"She's an important witness."
"She's also an adult who has spent eleven months terrified of everyone with authority."
Mara returned the phone.
"We don't get to force a conversation because we're curious."
That was the first thing about Detective Sato that Adrian had respected in a very long time.
Wink agreed to speak with Mara only after Nolan promised to remain nearby.
They sat in the salon's quiet upstairs lounge.
Mara placed her badge inside her coat rather than on the table.
"You haven't been arrested, Wink," she began. "I'm investigating your mother's death and the threats against you. You can stop this conversation whenever you want."
Wink stared at her hands.
"People said I killed her."
"People say many things."
"Do you think I did?"
"I don't know everything that happened yet."
Wink looked up.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have."
For several minutes they spoke about ordinary things.
Wink's birthday.
Her favorite food.
Whether she needed medication or medical attention.
She was twenty-one. She had turned that age on March 6 while hiding in a cheap motel.
She had spent the day eating crackers and watching rain leak through the ceiling.
When Mara asked about the paper, Wink's hands began trembling.
"There was a room," she said. "Gray walls. No windows. A table with one leg shorter than the others."
"Where was it?"
"I never saw the outside."
"Who was there?"
"A man. He wore a brown watch."
Mara waited.
"He kept telling me my mother had been sick."
"Sick how?"
"In her mind. He said she wanted to burn the building down, and I had to help people understand."
"Did you believe him?"
Wink's face twisted.
"I didn't know what to believe."
She remembered being exhausted.
A bright light above the table.
The smell of stale coffee.
Someone placing a sheet of paper before her.
The man telling her that if she signed, they would stop accusing her of hurting her mother.
"They told me she had left a message," Wink whispered. "That she wanted everything to end."
"Did you hear that message?"
"No."
"Did you read the document?"
"I tried."
"What happened?"
"He took it away and said I'd already been told what it meant."
"Did you sign your own name?"
Wink nodded.
"Winifred Hart."
Mara wrote the name carefully.
"Do you usually go by Wink?"
"My mom called me that. Nobody else did until she was gone."
Adrian sat motionless near the window.
Mara noticed his reaction.
"Who first used that name after the fire?"
Wink looked directly at him.
"Mr. Vale."
Adrian closed his eyes.
An hour later, Mara asked Adrian to step into the hallway.
"Tell me everything," she said.
He remained silent.
"Not the version you prepared for your lawyers. Everything."
Adrian looked through the glass partition.
Wink was drinking tea while Nolan spoke softly beside her.
"Victor Hart wanted her located after the fire," Adrian said.
"I know."
"He claimed she'd witnessed her mother attempting suicide and was too traumatized to understand it."
"And you believed him?"
"No."
"Then what did you do?"
Adrian looked away.
"I helped draft the language for an internal statement."
Mara stared at him.
"What language?"
"That Celia was emotionally distressed. That the fire may have been intentional. That Wink's disappearance raised serious questions."
"You helped accuse a missing twenty-year-old of killing her mother?"
"I didn't accuse her directly."
Mara's expression hardened.
"You were a lawyer, Adrian. You know exactly what implication means."
He had no defense.
"I resigned six weeks later."
"After the statement had already circulated."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Adrian hesitated.
"Victor asked me to do something else."
"What?"
"Help him establish that Wink was unfit to make decisions about her inheritance."
Mara took a slow breath.
"Was there an inheritance?"
"Potentially substantial."
"How substantial?"
"Her grandmother established a family charitable trust with a complicated appointment provision. On Wink's twenty-first birthday, she became eligible to occupy her mother's designated oversight seat on the Harborlight governing board."
"And Victor didn't want her taking it."
"No."
"Why?"
Adrian glanced toward the staircase.
"Because that seat came with the right to demand internal financial records."
Mara stared at him.
"How many records?"
"All of them."
Wink slept that night in a rented apartment above the salon, with Nolan's sister Claire staying in the adjacent room at Wink's request.
Adrian and Mara stood outside in the parking court.
A cold wind swept through the narrow alley.
"There's something I haven't told you," Adrian said.
Mara folded her arms.
"I assumed."
"Victor's people offered me money to stop searching for Wink."
"How much?"
"Ninety thousand dollars."
Mara stared.
"The money you brought into the salon?"
He nodded.
"When did they give it to you?"
"November nineteenth. A week after the fire."
"Did you accept it?"
"Yes."
"Did you spend it?"
"No."
"Why did you keep it?"
Adrian swallowed.
"At first, because I was a coward."
"And afterward?"
"Because I wanted proof that someone had paid me to abandon a missing woman."
Mara watched him for a long moment.
"Where is it now?"
"Still in the salon office. Nolan refused to take a dollar without written terms, and then I changed my mind about paying him from it."
"Good. Don't touch it again. We'll document how it was handled before anyone claims more than it can prove."
She started toward her car.
Then turned back.
"Adrian, you understand that money doesn't prove who started the fire."
"I do."
"And it doesn't erase what you did."
"I know."
Mara opened her car door.
"Then you'd better find something stronger."
Her phone rang before she could get inside.
She listened for several seconds.
"What?"
Her expression changed.
"Are you certain?"
She ended the call.
Adrian stepped forward.
"What happened?"
Mara looked at him.
"Someone just filed an emergency petition in Suffolk County Probate and Family Court."
"For what?"
"To place Wink Hart under guardianship."
Adrian went cold.
"Who's the petitioner?"
May you like
Mara answered with two words.
"Victor Hart."
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