Chapter 2 - The Question Daniel Couldn’t Answer
“Samuel,” Warren repeated, “put the bat down.”
The foyer behind him looked like the lobby of some expensive resort—white marble, twenty-foot ceilings, a chandelier that probably cost more than my tractor, and family portraits arranged along the walls as if the Vosses had founded Hartwell County with their bare hands.
Daniel stood barefoot beside his father.
He was still wearing that silk robe.
There wasn’t a mark on him.
That mattered.
I let the end of the bat touch the stone floor.
Daniel’s confidence returned immediately.
“There,” he said. “Good boy.”
Warren shot him a warning look.
I almost smiled.
For men who thought I was stupid, they certainly were eager to make mistakes in front of me.
“Claire says you hit her,” I said.
Daniel laughed.
“She says a lot of things when she gets emotional.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you throw her outside?”
“She left.”
“Barefoot?”
His jaw tightened.
Warren stepped between us.
“Samuel, whatever happened tonight is a private marital matter.”
“No,” I said.
The word echoed through the foyer.
Warren’s eyes narrowed.
I continued.
“A disagreement about money is private. Forgetting an anniversary is private. Breaking your wife’s ribs isn’t private.”
Daniel took one step toward me.
“You better watch your mouth in my house.”
I looked at him.
“Which rib?”
He froze.
Warren did too.
Daniel recovered quickly.
“What?”
“You just said she was lying. So tell me, Daniel. Which rib did you think I was talking about?”
For the first time, uncertainty moved behind his eyes.
I had spent five minutes with Dr. Ellis before leaving home.
Claire’s ribs were badly bruised, but he had not confirmed a fracture.
Daniel didn’t know that.
Yet.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
Daniel’s face reddened.
“You came up here with a weapon. You want to play games?”
“I came with an old baseball bat.”
“You threatened me.”
“No. I asked you a question.”
“You raised it at me.”
“I raised it so you’d stop smiling.”
His nostrils flared.
Warren put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
“Go upstairs.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Dad—”
“Now.”
That was interesting.
Daniel obeyed nobody unless he had to.
He disappeared toward the staircase, but halfway up he turned.
“She’ll come back,” he said. “She always does.”
My hand tightened around the bat.
Warren noticed.
“So that’s happened before?” I asked.
Daniel’s face changed.
Warren barked, “Upstairs.”
Daniel disappeared.
I looked at Warren.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
Then Warren shut the front door behind me.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You should’ve taught your son not to beat women.”
“You have no idea what happens inside their marriage.”
“I know what my daughter looked like at two seventeen this morning.”
His expression stayed flat.
“You want money?”
I stared at him.
Warren sighed.
“Don’t pretend to be insulted. People get angry. Families make mistakes. A settlement prevents embarrassment.”
“My daughter’s blood was on my porch.”
“And I’m offering to solve this before it becomes uglier.”
“That’s your problem, Warren.”
“What is?”
“You think money erases things.”
His eyes hardened.
“I think money fixes most things.”
I nodded slowly.
“And the things it can’t fix?”
Warren said nothing.
That was when I asked the question I had actually come to ask.
“Where is Claire’s phone?”
His expression shifted.
Barely.
But I saw it.
“Excuse me?”
“She didn’t have it when she got home.”
“Then she lost it.”
“Her purse?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Shoes?”
Silence.
“Coat?”
More silence.
I stepped closer.
“You see what bothers me, Warren? If Claire stormed out after an argument like Daniel says, she somehow decided to leave without her phone, purse, coat, shoes, or car. She walked nearly six miles in freezing rain with blood on her clothes.”
“She was hysterical.”
“Maybe.”
I leaned the bat against my shoulder.
“But there’s another problem.”
Warren’s mouth tightened.
“Her truck is still here.”
This time, he couldn’t hide it.
His eyes flicked toward the side of the house.
Just once.
That was all I needed.
I turned.
“Where are you going?”
“To look at her truck.”
“You are trespassing.”
“It’s registered to Claire Reed Voss.”
“The vehicle is on private property.”
“Then call the sheriff.”
His voice lowered.
“Samuel.”
I stopped.
There was something different in his tone now.
Not anger.
Warning.
“You’ve lived a quiet life,” he said. “Keep living it.”
I turned back.
“Is that what you told Evelyn?”
The color drained from his face.
For twenty years, I had wondered what would happen if I said my late wife’s name to Warren Voss without warning.
Now I knew.
His hand moved slightly toward the table beside him.
I noticed a phone there.
I also noticed his fingers trembling.
“Don’t bring your wife into this,” he said.
“She’s been dead nineteen years. Why does her name scare you?”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Maybe.”
I took my phone from my coat pocket.
Warren’s eyes dropped to it.
I turned the screen toward him.
The recorder had been running since before Daniel opened the door.
Warren’s face went still.
“You recorded this conversation?”
“State law only requires one participant to consent.”
For the first time that morning, I saw genuine surprise.
The dirt farmer knew the law.
Imagine that.
“You think that makes you clever?” he asked.
“No.”
I slipped the phone away.
“I think it makes me careful.”
Then headlights washed across the windows.
A car came fast up the circular drive.
Blue lights flashed a second later.
Warren looked toward the door.
“You called them,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
Three hard knocks followed.
“Hartwell County Sheriff’s Office!”
Warren opened the door.
Sheriff Malcolm Cade entered with two deputies.
I had known Malcolm since high school. He had once stolen peaches from my father’s orchard and blamed his little brother.
Now he wore a badge, a starched uniform, and the expression of a man arriving at a scene whose conclusion had already been decided.
His eyes moved to the bat.
Then to me.
“Sam,” he said. “Set it down.”
I placed it on the floor.
“Gladly.”
Daniel came down the stairs at exactly the right moment.
Now he was wearing sweatpants.
And holding his left forearm.
“I want him arrested,” he said.
I stared at him.
Daniel rolled up his sleeve.
A fresh red bruise stretched across his arm.
I knew immediately what he had done.
He had struck himself.
Sheriff Cade looked at me.
“Daniel says you assaulted him with that bat.”
“He’s lying.”
“I have an injury.”
“You didn’t have one ten minutes ago.”
Daniel smiled.
“Can you prove that?”
I glanced at Warren.
His expression told me everything.
The entire county machine was moving exactly as he expected.
Sheriff Cade sighed.
“Turn around, Sam.”
One deputy approached with handcuffs.
“You’re arresting me?”
“Aggravated assault and criminal trespass until we sort this out.”
“What about Claire?”
“What about her?”
“My daughter was beaten tonight.”
“Daniel says she attacked him and left voluntarily.”
I stared at Cade.
“Have you seen her?”
“No.”
“Spoken to her?”
“No.”
“Taken photographs?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not sorting anything out.”
His face reddened.
“Hands behind your back.”
I obeyed.
As the cuffs closed around my wrists, Daniel stepped close enough that only I could hear him.
“I told her,” he whispered. “Nobody believes people like you.”
I looked directly into his eyes.
Then I smiled.
He hadn’t expected that.
“You’re right about one thing, Daniel.”
“What?”
“Tonight was a test.”
His smile faded.
“And you failed every part of it.”
The deputy pulled me toward the door.
Outside, freezing rain swept across the drive.
They put me in the back of a cruiser.
As we started down Voss Hill, I looked through the rear window.
Daniel stood beside his father beneath the mansion lights.
Warren watched the cruiser leave.
Then my phone vibrated inside the evidence bag on the front seat.
Sheriff Cade glanced at the screen.
So did I.
One message.
The sender’s name was enough to make my heart beat faster.
MAYA SLOAN.
Seven words appeared beneath it.
I got your recording. Don’t say anything else.
Cade looked into the rearview mirror.
“Who the hell is Maya Sloan?”
I leaned back against the seat.
Twenty years earlier, Maya had been the youngest investigator in the State Bureau.
May you like
Today, she ran its Public Corruption Division.
And Warren Voss had no idea she had just heard his voice.
