Chapter 9 - The Woman Clara Had Hated Asked for Ten Minutes

Samantha entered the attorney interview room without makeup.

It was the first time Clara had ever seen her look ordinary.

The orange jail uniform made the transformation more obvious, but it was not the clothes. Samantha’s shoulders were no longer arranged for cameras. Her eyes moved too quickly. Her famous composure had been replaced by the exhausted calculation of someone who had run out of exits.

Clara sat across from her with Maya and a prosecutor present. Detective Ortiz watched through the glass.

“This is not a negotiation,” the prosecutor said. “Mrs. Linwood is here voluntarily. You are represented by counsel, and nothing she says binds the state.”

Samantha nodded.

Then she looked at Clara.

“You think Gabriel did all of this for money.”

“I think you both did.”

Samantha flinched, but only slightly.

“He did it because he was terrified of being exposed as ordinary.”

Clara said nothing.

Samantha leaned forward.

“Martin knew how bad the company was. Gabriel had leveraged projects against projects until one delay could bring down everything. Then interest rates moved, permits stalled, and suddenly the numbers stopped working.”

“So you forged my signature.”

“Yes.”

No excuse. No softening.

Clara had not expected honesty to hurt more.

“And the pills?”

Samantha’s face changed.

“That was not my idea.”

“But you did it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Gabriel said you needed to sleep through one evening so we could use your phone for identity verification.”

Clara’s stomach tightened.

“You drugged me so you could steal my identity.”

Samantha looked down. “Yes.”

The prosecutor wrote something.

Clara kept her voice steady. “What was Plan B?”

For the first time, Samantha hesitated.

“He wanted you discredited.”

“How?”

“He built a file. Fake transfers, messages, a draft statement saying you had emptied accounts because you were leaving him for someone else.”

“There is no someone else.”

“I know.”

“What about Duluth?”

Samantha closed her eyes.

“That was Martin’s idea. They wanted you out of Minneapolis while they moved money and reported you missing from a board meeting. Nothing was supposed to happen to you physically.”

“Supposed to?”

“I never agreed to hurt you.”

Clara almost laughed.

“You changed pills in my bathroom.”

“I know what that sounds like.”

“It sounds exactly like what it was.”

Samantha swallowed.

“There’s something else.”

Of course there was.

“Gabriel kept a second ledger. Not the one police found.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Maya’s eyes narrowed.

Samantha hurried on. “He called it insurance. He said if Martin ever tried to sacrifice him, he could prove who authorized every transfer.”

“Why tell me?” Clara asked.

“Because Martin will make Gabriel the mastermind. Gabriel will make Martin the mastermind. Derek Sloan will say he was only the lawyer. And they’ll all use me as the idiot mistress who forged signatures.”

“Were you?”

Samantha stared at her.

“Yes,” she said. “But not only that.”

The answer held no pride.

Clara thought of years spent shrinking beside women like Samantha. She had imagined their confidence as proof of superiority. Now she saw something more common and less flattering: hunger wrapped in polish.

“Why Gabriel?” Clara asked.

Samantha looked surprised.

“Because he chose me.”

“No. Why help him do this?”

Samantha’s eyes filled, though no tears fell.

“My father lost everything when I was seventeen. House, retirement, reputation. I decided I would never be powerless again.”

“So you made someone else powerless.”

Samantha looked away.

Clara stood.

“Ten minutes are over.”

“Wait.”

Clara paused.

“Ask Violet about the aquarium.”

Every muscle in Clara’s body tightened.

“What aquarium?”

“The little glass fish tank in Gabriel’s office. He used to keep the backup key under the base.”

“To what?”

“The second ledger.”

Clara leaned across the table.

“If you knew that, why didn’t you take it?”

“Because Gabriel moved the ledger after he realized Violet had been in the office.”

“Then the key is useless.”

“Maybe.”

Samantha’s voice dropped.

“But the tank was never for fish.”

Afterward, Ortiz asked Clara what she believed.

“About the ledger?”

“About Samantha.”

Clara considered the question. “I believe she told some truths because the truth is useful to her now.”

Ortiz nodded. “That is usually a better starting point than deciding whether someone is good or bad.”

The investigator then showed Clara a photograph from Gabriel’s office taken during the first search. On the bookshelf behind his desk sat a square glass aquarium filled with blue decorative stones.

The photograph was six months old, recovered from a real-estate listing made before the house was taken off the market.

In the search photographs from last week, the aquarium was gone.

Samantha had given them the first detail that could be tested immediately.

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The photograph did not prove where the ledger was, but it gave Ortiz something better than speculation: an object, a location, and a disappearance that could be checked against cameras and storage records. Clara watched the detective write down the next steps without promising what they would find.

That discipline steadied her more than reassurance ever had.