The Bona Fide Fraud - Chapter 24 911

Chance arrived at the flat two hours later. He looked hollow and disheveled. He brought his bags from the hotel and declared he would sleep on the couch in the den until things were settled. Gemma could take the bedroom. Neither of them should be alone, he said.

She didn’t want him there. She was feeling sad and vulnerable. With Chance, she preferred to have her armor on. Still, he was good in a crisis, she gave him that. He set himself to texting and telephoning people, and he talked to everyone with an extreme gentleness Gemma hadn’t known he possessed. The Blair’s, their friends from Martha’s Vineyard, Will’s college friends: Chance got in touch with everyone personally, checking them neatly off a list he’d made.

Gemma called the London police. They came in, bustling, while Chance was on the phone with Paulina. The cops took the note in Willow’s handwriting, then asked for statements from Gemma and Chance.

They agreed it didn’t look like Will had gone traveling. Her suitcases were in the closet, as were her clothes. Her wallet and credit cards were in a bag they found. Her laptop wasn’t in the flat, however, and her driver’s license and passport were missing.

Chance asked a police officer if the suicide note could be a forgery. “Maybe a kidnapper wanted to put suspicion elsewhere,” he said. “Or maybe it was a note she was forced to write? Is there a way you could tell if she was forced to write it?”

“Chance, the note was in the bread box,” Gemma reminded him gently. “Will left it for me in the bread box.”

“Why would Miss Blair be kidnapped?” asked the officer.

“Money. Someone could be holding her for ransom. It’s strange that her laptop is missing. Or she could have been murdered. Like, by someone who made her write the note.”

The officers listened to Chance;s theories. They pointed out that he himself was the most suspicious person: an ex-boyfriend who had recently arrived in the city looking for Willow. But they also made it clear they didn’t really suspect a crime of any kind. They looked for signs of a struggle but found none.

Chance said Willow could have been abducted from outside the apartment, but the police officers reminded him about the bread box. “Suicide note makes it clear,” they said. They asked if that was Will’s handwriting, and Gemma said it was. They asked Chance, and he said it was, too. Or at least, it looked like it.

Gemma gave them Willow’s UK phone. It showed only calls to local museums and emails from her parents, Chance, Vivian Abromowitz, and a few more friends Gemma could identify. The officers asked for Will’s bank records. Gemma gave them some papers printed out from the missing computer. They were in a drawer of the desk in the living room.

The officers promised to search the river for Willow’s body, but they also noted that if her body was weighted with stones, it wouldn’t surface easily. It had probably been moved away from the Westminster Bridge by the current.

If they found her at all, it might take days or even weeks.