Chapter 6 - A Mother’s Price
I didn’t go alone.
Miriam arranged for Beatrice to meet us in a private conference room at her office. Beatrice objected twice, then arrived ten minutes early.
Without the marble staircase and household staff behind her, she seemed smaller.
She still wore pearls.
She still looked at my inexpensive coat before looking at my face.
Then she placed a small velvet pouch on the table.
My wedding band slid out.
I couldn’t move.
For days, I had imagined getting it back. I had pictured relief arriving the moment the gold touched my skin.
Instead, I remembered the guard pulling.
Miriam moved the pouch toward me.
“Do you recognize it?”
“Yes.”
“May we photograph it before you take it?”
I nodded.
Beatrice watched impatiently.
“Must everything become evidence?”
Miriam met her eyes.
“Given how it left my client’s possession, yes.”
When the photograph was taken, I picked up the band.
Inside were our initials and the date.
I closed my hand around it.
“Why?”
Beatrice folded her gloves.
“I found it in Arthur’s desk.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Her gaze dropped.
For several seconds, I heard only the office ventilation.
Then she said, “Raymond Bell has left the country.”
Miriam’s pen stopped.
“How do you know?”
“Arthur was on the phone last night. He thought I was asleep.”
“What did he say?”
“That Bell had become a liability. That the arrangement was finished.”
A cold pressure settled behind my ribs.
“Did you know about Leo’s medication?”
“I knew he was ill.”
“Did you know they were keeping him sedated?”
“He was in pain.”
“I was there. You watched me ask questions.”
Beatrice’s mouth trembled.
“Arthur said you were exhausting yourself. He said the doctor understood the situation.”
“You believed him because it was easier.”
She flinched.
I had wanted that flinch. When it came, it gave me nothing.
Miriam asked Beatrice to explain exactly what she had heard, separating her own observations from what Arthur had told her.
There was no sudden confession.
There were fragments.
Arthur insisting that Leo must not speak to Daniel.
Bell arriving after midnight.
A medication delivery placed on a household account rather than processed through ordinary pharmacy billing.
Beatrice moving from the bedroom to the hall while her husband took a call about “the driver.”
“I thought he meant Leo’s chauffeur,” she whispered.
“Did Leo have a chauffeur?” Miriam asked.
“No.”
The word barely reached us.
Then Beatrice opened her handbag again.
She brought out a small digital recorder.
“Arthur uses these for dictation. He leaves them everywhere. This one was running in his study.”
Miriam didn’t play it immediately.
She asked where Beatrice found it, when she took it, and whether she had changed anything.
Beatrice’s eyes filled with irritation.
Then fear.
“Will this protect me?”
The room went still.
There she was.
Not a grieving mother seeking truth.
A frightened woman calculating whether truth could purchase safety.
Miriam’s voice remained even.
“You need your own attorney. I cannot promise you protection.”
Beatrice turned to me.
“Lana, please.”
I looked at the wedding band in my palm.
“When they held my arms, I asked you to stop.”
She began to cry.
“I know.”
“You looked right at me.”
“I know.”
I put the ring into the velvet pouch.
“I won’t lie for you.”
Miriam contacted Detective Ruiz before Beatrice left.
That afternoon, the recorder entered the investigation through Beatrice’s attorney.
I went home exhausted.
Tessa found me sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to put my ring on. My knuckle was still swollen.
“It won’t fit,” I said.
“Give it time.”
I started laughing, then crying, and she sat beside me until both stopped.
Three days later, Ruiz requested another interview.
The recording had led investigators to additional records and witnesses.
She still wouldn’t give me details.
But before she left, she said, “You should hear the next developments from us. Please keep your phone nearby.”
I barely slept.
May you like
At six fourteen the following morning, it rang.
Arthur Sullivan had been arrested.
