Another showed the contents exactly as I had discovered them.
Then came the timestamp.
2:23 a.m.
Grant stared at the screen.
His polished expression collapsed completely.
Laya saw it happen.
“You put that in her bag?” she asked.
Grant ignored her.
“You moved it,” he said to me.
The officer turned toward him.
I did not answer.
Grant realized too late what he had just admitted.
Laya took a step backward.
“You knew it was in her suitcase?”
“No.”
“You just said she moved it.”
“I’m guessing.”
“You told me not to say anything before they even opened it.”
“Laya, stop.”
Her face changed.
For the first time since I had met her, the performance disappeared.
No coy smile.
No polished embarrassment.
No carefully arranged innocence.
Only fear and fury.
“What did you put me in the middle of?”
Grant lowered his voice.
“Do not make this worse.”
“For who?” she asked.
That question broke whatever remained of his control.
He turned on her.
“You were supposed to follow instructions.”
The officers heard every word.
So did I.
Laya’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
Instead, she reached into her coat pocket and handed over her phone.
“He planned the trip,” she said.
“He told me where to stand.
He told me when to check in.
He told me not to touch Evelyn’s luggage.”
Grant stared at her.
“Laya.”
She shook her head.
“No.
You don’t get to use that voice now.”
The officers separated us after that.
The flight to London departed without any of us.
For the next several hours, questions replaced the vacation Grant had promised me.
I answered mine carefully.
I explained the marriage problems.
His affair.
Laya’s sudden inclusion on our itinerary.
His insistence on handling the luggage arrangements.
The strange comments he had made before the trip.
The sounds I heard at 2:11.
The hidden case.
