16. Reid
Reid
Reid stood on the courthouse steps long after Maya disappeared into the crowd.
He couldn’t seem to move.
He was still staring at the place where she had been, as if she might turn around and come back.
She didn’t.
He’d spent the last 24 hours with one goal. To see Maya. To know she was safe.
And now, he’d seen her. He’d seen that she was standing.
She was angry. She was scared. She was magnificent.
Yes, he’d made a mistake, a huge mistake, but it hadn’t been for no reason. There had been evidence against her. She had to understand he had done what he had to.
And because Reid was an idiot, because he his need to see Maya had overwhelmed every essence of his body, it was only now, only watching her walk away, that he realized what that evidence meant.
She had been set up.
Reid drove.
Someone had framed Maya.
He would find the hand that had done this to Maya, and then he would prove it the way he proved everything—line by line, number by number. The law worked, it always did.
This was something he knew what to do.
He had been certain when he snapped those handcuffs around her wrists. He had been so certain standing at the observation window watching the officer press her fingers onto the scanner.
He had been so certain when he packed her suitcase.
Anyone would have reached the same conclusion, though. The accounts were in her name. What else was he supposed to have thought?
Reid's jaw tightened.
He already understood, on some dim level, that he didn’t want to know the answer. It was going to be an ugly answer. He wasn't ready for it yet.
He drove.
The numbers on the screen pulled his focus, narrowing the world down to columns and timestamps and routing codes.
“You’re reviewing the transaction logs again? You must really have it in for her.” He could hear the judgment in Wilson’s voice.
He didn’t have time for this. “She didn’t do it.” He kept his attention on the spreadsheet on his monitor. Rows of transactions filled the screen.
Before, every line had felt like a knife. Every transaction another cut in the life he thought he understood.
Now the numbers felt like they were breathing life into him. They were his tools. His fingers moved across the keyboard.
“My wife runs a volunteer charity with a shoestring budget,” Reid said, tabbing through the screens of documents he had open. “She does not build multi-layered shell companies designed to withstand forensic accounting.”
Somewhere in the chain of transfers was the person who had constructed the fraud and allowed it to fall on Maya.
His focus narrowed further as the transaction paths expanded across the screen.
He could fix this.
His fingers moved faster across the keyboard as the numbers arranged themselves. In order to frame Maya, the real criminal had to have access to these accounts.
There were a limited number of people with admin-level access, the kind that let someone transfer the money like this.
If he started with the unquestionable fact that Maya was innocent, then the guilty party had to be…
He froze.
Julian.
The house looked the same as always, the air carried the same faint scent, and yet it all felt unnatural.
Reid’s attention snagged on details. A book on the coffee table. The blanket draped over the back of the sofa. The objects remained, but whatever had given them meaning had gone with her.
He’d lived his entire life in this house. Maya had only been a part of that life for the last five years. So why did her absence mean it no longer felt like home?
He moved into the kitchen and for a brief, disorienting moment, his mind filled in the gap without his permission—Maya at the counter, turning when she heard him, her expression softening in that small, unconscious way she had when she saw him.
He closed his eyes, pressing his fingers briefly against the bridge of his nose. She’d come back. He just needed to put things back to the way they were before. He would simply put things back to the way they should be.
And then Maya would come back and they could get over this.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes.
How long had Julian been stealing money? Who else did he steal from? Was he a career criminal or was this the first taste?
He should care. An agent of the IRS should be motivated by his full list of crimes. But Julian’s unforgivable action had been to cross Maya. He wasn’t being objective. Not about this. Reid smiled grimly. He would destroy the man who had hurt Maya.
And then she would come home. He would clear her name and she would come back. It would be exactly as it was before.
For a moment he remembered the stunned look on her face when he’d handed her that fucking suitcase.
When he reached the bedroom doorway, he hesitated. For a moment he simply stood there. Then he crossed the threshold.
This room too appeared unchanged. But he knew what lurked underneath. A drawer that didn’t sit as full as it once had, a section of the closet where a few hangers stood empty.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, the motion abrupt, as if a puppet’s strings were dropped.
He stared at the band that still sat on his finger.
He leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his knees, his hands hanging loosely between them.
He’d brought Julian into their lives, he’d introduced him, he’d taught Maya to trust him. He had been invited in their home. He'd eaten dinner at their table.
He’d told him about Maya's funding. He’d told him about the grants she’d won.
He thought about Julian offering to help. He'd been grateful. He'd shaken Julian's hand.
Reid would destroy him.
Of course Maya was angry with him. That was understandable. Anyone would be angry in her position.
But Maya was a reasonable woman. She knew him. She knew he was a man of principle, that he acted on evidence, that he had never once in his career looked the other way because it was convenient.
She would understand. She would come home.
“Don’t you think this is a bit late?” Owen asked.
“Of course Maya didn't take the money," Reid said again. “She was framed."
Owen sighed and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"I acted on the evidence I had," Reid explained. “It was made to make her look like the guilty party.”
When Owen lowered his hands, he frowned at Reid. "When she first brought you home. She said you were a smart guy.” Owen bit out.
Reid had always thought he was a smart guy.
"She was wrong," Owen said.
Owen turned slightly and looked toward the window.
“I just need to know she’s safe,” Reid said. “That she has somewhere to sleep. That someone is with her. Please.”
The last word scraped on the way out. Owen looked back at him, stared at Reid’s face for a long moment.
“She’s with Thomas and Edith Merritt,” Owen said at last.
Thomas and Edith. Good. They would look after her. Maya was not alone. Thank God.
The anger hadn't left Owen’s face. Reid didn't expect it to.
"Get out," Owen said.
Reid stood.
He walked back down the hallway to the elevator.
He pressed the button and waited.
When the doors opened he stepped inside and turned.
Owen was watching from the open door of his apartment. He sat there, one hand on the doorframe, the other on his chair.
"Fix this,” Owen said.
The elevator doors shut.
Reid stood in the small mirrored box as it descended.
He intended to.