Reid
“She asked if she could speak to you,” the officer told him.
What did he care what she wanted? He didn’t care one bit.
There was still work to do. Director Sullivan wanted a briefing, and the formal charge documentation needed his approval before it went upstairs.
Maya sat in the plastic chair on the other side of the glass.
Her hands were in her lap now. Someone had removed the cuffs for processing. He watched her rub her wrists.
Her shoulders pulled inward as she looked down at the table in front of her.
It was a great act.
She had always listened so closely when he talked about his work. How financial investigations unfolded, what triggered audits.
He had liked that about her. He had liked that she respected what he did.
The officer across the table said something. Maya nodded without looking up.
She moved when directed. Held still when directed.
Mechanical.
He watched them take her fingerprints.
His wife was in custody. This was where she belonged. She had broken the law and these were the consequences.
He watched as his colleague guided Maya’s hand, pressing each finger onto the scanner.
His wife was in a processing room. Her fingerprints were going into the system.
Through the glass, Maya rubbed at her wrists again.
Reid had never arrested anyone before. He had a lot of paperwork to do.
But he stayed where he was.
Watching the liar, the thief he’d married be processed.
Like she deserved.
Wilson was waiting by his desk when Reid came back to his desk.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said, arms crossed across his chest.
"I arrested a criminal."
"Maya," Wilson said. As if Reid didn’t know that. "Your wife.”
Reid’s jaw tightened. “She broke the law. She got exactly what she deserved.”
“We backed you up,” Brian said. “But you need to be sure.”
Diane turned in her chair. “You pulled an all-nighter. You might have made a mistake.”
“Fraud is fraud,” Reid said firmly.
Wilson didn’t let it go. “But it’s Maya.”
“My wife?” Brian interjected, “If she killed someone, I’d help bury the body.”
“Then you’d be a criminal, too,” Reid snapped.
“No,” Brian stood up then. He got right into Reid’s face and jabbed him in the chest with his finger. “I’d be a husband.”
Reid slapped his finger away. “Maya didn’t kill anyone,” he said sharply. “She defrauded a charity. And if you’d help your wife get away with a crime, Brian, then you shouldn't be working here, you don't deserve to.”
There were corporate jobs with better money, better hours, better everything. He’d never been tempted. This work mattered. Someone had to be the person who didn't look the other way.
Brian frowned at him. Wilson still had his arms crossed. Diane shook her head.
“I need to finish this report,” Reid said. Paperwork he could trust. Unlike the woman he’d been stupid enough to marry. “The rest of you can go home.”
Reid felt sorry for Maya's brother. He obviously had no idea what kind of person his sister was.
Owen rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, the movement restless and frustrated.
"She's been running that charity for years," he said. "She could have done anything with her life after my accident. Instead she chose this."
Reid didn't interrupt.
"My sister did not steal from her own charity."
Reid hadn't seen it either. He had built a career on seeing through exactly this kind of thing—and all the time his wife had been embezzling money.
"The fraud is indisputable," he said. His voice came out harder than he intended.
He'd followed the money trail. It had been transferred away from the charity and into personal accounts under Maya's name. Accounts that Reid had never seen before. He'd thought they shared everything.
What did she even need that money for? Reid would have given her anything.
Owen looked furious, but it wasn't Reid he should be angry at.
Owen was gripping the wheels of his chair tight enough that his knuckles were right. “I’ve got a trip with the team," he bit out. "I'm one of the chaperones.” He pointed at Reid. "I'll be back on Tuesday. First thing I do is find her a lawyer.”
“She has a lawyer,” Reid told him. “The best in town.”
Owen frowned at him. "What?"
"It's handled. I handled it.”
For a moment Owen just stared at him, visibly trying to make the sentence make sense.
Then he laughed—a short, ugly sound with nothing happy in it.
"You arrested her," Owen said slowly, like he was working it out loud for his own benefit, "and now you're paying for her lawyer."
"Yes."
"Jesus Christ." Owen dragged a hand down his face. "You really can’t see how stupid you’re being, can you?”
Reid had reorganized his life around her—around her work, her community, her brother—and she had let him do it knowing what she'd done. Knowing it would come apart. Not caring that when it did, he would be the one left holding the consequences.
Owen rolled his chair backward a few inches and turned toward the door. He moved through their house with the ease of long familiarity. No. Not their house, Reid thought coldly. His house. She was no longer welcome here.
Reid opened the door for him and Owen paused on the threshold, his hands resting lightly on the wheels again.
Owen was quiet for another second.
"You're wrong about Maya,” he said. "You're wrong and you're a goddamn idiot."
Owen rolled out onto the porch and Reid watched him go. Reid didn’t regret arresting his duplicitous wife.
She betrayed more than the people she stole from. She betrayed her family. She’d betrayed him.
Reid pulled a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and dropped it on the bed. He wrenched the zip open and stepped back.
Reid felt heat crawl up the back of his neck. This was where they’d slept. Where he’d made love to her.
How many times had she said I love you after moving money that same day?
Maybe she'd fucked him afterward out of guilt. Or maybe she'd got off on it, enjoyed knowing he’d fallen for her lies.
He grabbed her sweater, a soft one she wore on cold mornings. He'd watched her reach for a hundred times. He shoved it into the case.
He’s paid attention to what she wore, what she liked. He'd always paid attention, but to the wrong things, it seemed.
How stupid had he been? Of course she hadn’t loved him. That had been the least plausible part of it.
He yanked open the next drawer.
She wasn’t Reid’s problem anymore. Her brother would take care of her.
The whole thing had been a performance. Every soft word. Every laugh. The way she'd turned toward him in her sleep—god, he'd thought that meant something.
She was good at it, he'd give her that. She'd had everyone fooled, him most of all.
Her notebooks were lined up on the shelf. He had seen her with them often enough—pages filled with sketches, measurements, notes written in the margins, revisions layered over earlier thoughts.
He swept them all into the case.
He was an IRS agent and his wife was a thief.
He could already hear the pity in the office voices.
Poor Reid. The fraud investigator who slept beside a criminal for years and never noticed.
His jaw tightened until it ached.
Of course she'd chosen him. It made perfect sense now.
He'd thought he was lucky.
He’d been a mark.
He picked up the suitcase.
The holding area cameras. He'd watched the feed, again and again, he'd watched it. Looking for what? Some sign that he'd been wrong?
She looked frightened, but that didn’t mean a thing. Guilty people should be scared when they were finally caught.
She had a lawyer—a good lawyer, the best—he’d seen to that.
His marriage was over.
He couldn’t love a fraud. He couldn’t love someone who pretended to be helping people and stole from them instead.
He carried the suitcase to the front door and flung it down.
The law would take its course and Reid was washing his hands of her.