Chapter 6: Everything She Built on Someone Else's Grave
They brought Diane back into the reception room just after ten o'clock.
She had composed herself.
That was the first thing Edward noticed — the way she walked in as if she had simply stepped out for air, not as if she had spent the last hour in a closed room trying to arrange an escape.
Her chin was level.
Her hands were still.
She sat down across from Edward without being asked.
"I'd like to speak to my husband," she said to the investigator.
"Alone."
"That's not possible right now," the investigator said.
"Then I'd like to speak to him in your presence." She looked at Edward.
"Please."
Edward looked at the investigator, who nodded slightly.
"Go ahead," Edward said.
Diane folded her hands on the table.
"I know how this looks."
"Do you," Edward said.
"I know what they've shown you.
The documents.
The recording.
That woman's letter." She glanced toward Ruth, who sat quietly near the window.
"I know it looks like a pattern."
"It is a pattern," Edward said.
"Edward—"
"My first wife's name was Eleanor," he said.
"She d*ed of unexplained cardiac failure at fifty-three years old.
She was healthy.
She ran three miles every morning.
Her doctor said he had never seen a patient in better condition." He paused.
"And she left a letter saying she believed someone in her own house was making her sick."
Diane said nothing.
"I want to hear you say it wasn't you," Edward said.
"Look at me and say it."
She looked at him.
Her eyes were steady.
Her voice, when it came, was careful and quiet.
"It wasn't me," she said.
"You're lying," Ruth said from across the room.
Diane turned her head slowly.
"You're an old woman who kept a letter for twelve years instead of going to the police.
Don't talk to me about truth."
Ruth didn't flinch.
"I went to this house three days after Eleanor's funeral.
You turned me away from the door."
"I don't remember that."
"You were wearing a grey dress," Ruth said.
"You had already moved her things out of the bedroom.
The roses she planted along the east wall had been pulled up.
I remember thinking — she hasn't even been in the ground a week."
Diane's jaw tightened.
"You knew exactly who I was," Ruth said.
"You knew I had been close to Eleanor.
That's why you sent me away."
"This is speculation—"
"Victor Hale has been stopped at the county line," the investigator said.
"He was traveling with the notary who stamped the insurance documents.
Would you like to revise anything you've told us?"
The composure cracked.
Not dramatically — just a single visible fracture, like a line appearing in porcelain under pressure.
Her eyes moved to the table.
Her hands, still folded, pressed slightly harder against each other.
"I want my lawyer," she said.
"You've said that," the investigator replied.
"He's been contacted.
He's on his way."
"Then I have nothing more to say until he arrives."
"That's fine," Edward said.
He stood up.
"I have something to say."
Diane looked up at him.
"Three years," he said.
"I thought I was lucky.
I thought — after Eleanor — I thought I had been given something back." He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair.
"You sat across from me at dinner every night for three years.
You came to Eleanor's grave with me on her birthday.
You stood there and held my hand."
Diane's expression didn't change.
"Was any of it real?" he asked.
"Even one moment of it."
She looked at him for a long time.
"You were always going to be difficult to fool," she said finally.
"I'll give you that."
Edward put on his jacket.
"Get her lawyer here," he said to the investigator.
He walked toward the door.
He stopped with his hand on the frame and turned back to look at Daniel, who was still seated at the table.
"You're not going anywhere tonight," Edward said.
"Not until I've had a chance to speak with you properly.
Is that all right?"
Daniel nodded.
Edward looked at Ruth.
May you like
"You either."
Then he walked out into the hallway, and for the first time all evening, he was alone.
