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Dusk blazed orange and fuchsia across the sky as Rae and Lily ate some Big Truck Tacos takeout on their back patio. She was admiring her daughter, how the setting sun made her face glow, and she thought about Dayton and how he must’ve felt spending time with Carli, knowing she was in danger if he didn’t follow through and tamper with the evidence. She wanted to help him, but she didn’t know how.
She knew what it was like to be cornered, to make a quick decision and change the course of your life in an instant. Sometimes it worked out, like when she’d met Viv, and sometimes it was like crawling on your hands and knees through broken glass. It had been that way with Marilyn and Ben, and she avoided thinking about them.
“Do you still talk to Cynthia?” Lily asked.
As they ate, Lily had asked Rae more about Viv and everything that had happened in New Mexico, and Rae tried to tell her as much as she could about how she got started in her work without going into too many details. It hurt too much to remember some parts, likeViv’s death, but she knew Lily was trying to put together the pieces of how her mother had come to be the person sitting in front of her. She couldn’t fault her for wanting to know when she had never had the courage to ask those questions of her own mother.
“Yes, we still talk on occasion,” Rae said. “She’s actually planning to visit sometime next year.” She didn’t say how Cynthia was dealing with the tail end of breast cancer treatments, so the visit was up in the air.
Lily’s face turned contemplative. “Mom? All these things you went through, is it why you haven’t really dated anyone?”
“I’ve dated, honey.”
“Not really. Not anyone you’ve brought around me.” Lily bit her bottom lip. “I just want you to be happy, so if that Dayton guy makes you feel that way ... well, you should see what happens and don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll always worry about you because that’s what parents do.”
“Not all parents,” Lily said, and Rae knew she was alluding to the grandmother she’d never met.
Before Rae could respond, she heard the doorbell chime. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and she pushed down the sudden anxiety bubbling up.
Lily checked the doorbell camera app on her phone since Rae had left her own phone inside the house. “Huh. That’s funny.” She showed Rae her screen, and there was Dayton on their front porch.
“You finish up dinner while I see what he needs.”
Lily smirked. “Okey dokey.”
When Rae opened the front door, Dayton looked like a glass vase perched on the edge of a table, waiting for the slightest brush to knock him over.
“I’m sorry to come over here like this,” he said. “I tried calling you.”
“I was out back with Lily having dinner. Come inside.” She shut the door, noting the thick folder in his hands. “What’s going on?”
“I need your help with something. If you’re willing.”
“Of course.”
Dayton looked past her toward the back of the house, and his expression shifted from urgent to friendly. “Hi, Lily. Sorry to interrupt your meal.”
“It’s okay. We’re done anyway.” Lily held the trash from the takeout as she slowly walked into the kitchen, her eyes on them. “Never mind me. Just throwing this away.”
“Uh, we need to go over some things in my office, honey,” Rae said.
After she and Dayton settled in her office, he plopped the folder on her desk. “Thomas Highsmith’s bank records. The real ones.”
“What do you mean, ‘the real ones’?”
“So, that meeting Thomas had at the Skirvin Hotel bar before the Coulters’ party was with Bobby Coulter. A witness confirmed it, but I just learned there was another man at the meeting with Thomas. Unfortunately, the bartender didn’t have a good description of him, but he didn’t recognize Pearson when I showed him a photo, and the hotel doesn’t have any video footage.”
“That’s good, though. It ties Bobby to Thomas.”
“Yes, but get this.” Dayton ran his hand through his hair. “Benson, the guy who might’ve attacked you, was in charge of obtaining Thomas’s bank statements, which is what led us to you to begin with. Once I combed through the statements myself, the numbers weren’t adding up. Benson doctored them and did a shit job at it too. It took a minute, but the bank sent new copies directly to me as I was finishing up ice cream with Carli and her friend.”
Rae leaned forward in her office chair. “Okay, so what do you need me to help with?”
“This is a lot to go through.” He opened the folder that was about two inches thick. “I don’t trust most people at my work right now. I need help going through every statement and highlighting anything that seems off or unusual. Any large amounts of funds deposited or withdrawn, any odd-sounding names.”
Rae looked at the time; it was nearing eight. “All right. Let’s do this.”
