Creed Offered Nora Back In Exchange For My Sworn Retraction

I pressed the phone hard against my ear.

"Let me hear her."

"You'll get instructions first," Creed said. "Your recorder clock was wrong. You mixed files while testing. You let that detective talk you into naming voices."

"None of that happened."

"It can happen on paper."

I looked at the photograph lying in an evidence bag in my memory. Ruth's car plate. Her shoulder against mine.

"You leave her alone."

"Which her?"

He enjoyed the silence after that.

Then I heard a scrape and a woman's voice.

"Ziad?"

"Nora?"

"Tell my sister I'm here. Tell her I didn't sign."

Creed took the phone back.

"A draft will come in the morning. Sign it before a notary. Deliver it where I tell you. Then Ellis goes home. If Bell hears about this, she doesn't."

The call ended.

I stood still until the wall clock struck eleven. Then I called the number Ruth had given me for after-hours contact and reported every word I could recall.

She arrived with her supervisor and a detective named Mercer. This time they used a formal interview room. Someone brought me water in a cup that bent when I lifted it.

"He wants doubt in the evidence," Mercer said. "Even if he can't get every copy, a sworn claim that you mixed the files would give his lawyers something to use."

"He wants Nora alive until I sign."

"That's what he said," Ruth answered. "We have to test what he said."

I stared at her.

"You think I should let her die to keep a file clean?"

Her face changed, but her voice stayed low.

"I think he's making you carry a choice that belongs to him. We can look for her and protect the evidence at the same time."

I wanted to take my words back. There was no form for that.

Mercer turned a page toward me. It was a list of steps already underway: addresses checked, people called, vehicles sought. Several lines had times beside them. He covered the names with his hand before I could read them.

"You're not the only one awake," he said.

Until then, I had pictured Nora alone and everyone else standing still. The page didn't tell me she would live. It showed me that refusing Creed's terms could mean doing something, rather than just waiting for the worst.

"I was scared," I said.

"So was I."

Her supervisor sent Mercer to arrange the next steps. Ruth remained at the table with me for a moment.

"I need to put something in the record," she said. "I've come to care about you. That could affect this case, or look like it did. Mercer will handle your contact and your evidence from here. My supervisor approved me staying on Nora's search."

"Did I get you in trouble?"

"I disclosed a problem before it became one. That's part of the job."

I rubbed the seam of the silver case through my pocket.

"When this is over, I'd like to eat a whole sandwich with you. At the same table. Without anyone bagging the plate."

Her eyes softened.

"That sounds like reckless luxury."

Mercer returned. The next call would be recorded under the plan the prosecutor approved. I would ask for more time and proof that Nora was alive. I would make no sworn false statement.

At dawn, I went home with an officer nearby and curtains I wasn't allowed to open. Waiting felt like holding a key down while a pipe refused to speak.

At 8:12, Creed called.

"You're slow."

"I'm a tuner. People complain about that."

Mercer sat across from me, listening through his equipment.

"The letter's in your email," Creed said.

"My lawyer needs to read it."

"Your lawyer doesn't get a vote."

"A notary won't witness a blank page. Send the whole thing. And let Nora speak again."

He swore under his breath, then put her on.

Her voice sounded dry.

"My sister needs my house key. It's in the blue folder."

Then the line clicked back to Creed.

"Noon. Bring the signed original to my lawyer's reception desk. Nobody follows the girl when she's released."

He hung up.

Mercer checked with Nora's sister. Nora kept spare keys in a kitchen tin. The blue folder held the tenant receipts she had gathered before she vanished.

"She was trying to tell us what mattered," I said.

"We'll tell Ruth," Mercer answered.

The emailed draft claimed I had joined separate sound files and supplied the wrong date. It included a space for a notary's seal. A second attachment held delivery instructions.

Creed had forwarded an internal office message instead of copying just its last page.

Above the instructions sat an expense line: DB-4, Overnight Watch, $900, Owen Pruitt.

Mercer lifted his phone.

"Get the audit team," he said. "We have a cost code."