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“Yes.”

“How long is that drive?”

“I was not looking at the clock. Long enough that I was still on the road when she died.”

“You stayed on the phone the whole way?”

“Yes.”

“You heard her die?”

I look at the glass. The hallway on the other side is full of people who do not belong in this building.

“I heard her. I heard her running. I heard her say she could see her car. I heard her scream. I heard a voice that was not hers. I heard the fall. Then I heard almost nothing.”

“What voice?”

“Close. Low. The same one that called me Tuesday night.”

Pell’s mouth flattens. “The night Noah Brennan died?”

“Yes.”

“You told officers then you had an unknown caller?” Pell says.

“Yes.”

“You did not tell them everything that caller said?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because some of it was meant to make me look like I wanted it. I am a lawyer. I know what happens when those words get written down.”

Pell waits. Ortiz’s pen is already moving.

“That is not an answer I can use,” Pell says. “What did they say?”

“They said they had been watching me. They said they wanted me on my knees in my own building. They said they wanted my mouth shut, then open. That is the shape of it.”

“The shape?” Pell asks.

“Yes.”

“Not the words?”

“Not all of them.”

“Mr. Preswood, four people who work for you are dead. You do not get to tidy the call.”

I look at the glass. I look at her. My voice stays quiet even longer than I mean it to.

“I am not tidying it. I am not handing you a page that reads like I asked a stranger to fuck me in a file room while a man I employed was dying on the floor. That is what they wanted this to look like. That is why I did not give it to the first officer who asked.”

“So give it to me,” Pell says.

“I am trying.”