Chương 3
Daniel’s posture changed.
He had the same expression he wore when listening to a client explain a construction dispute—still, attentive, skeptical of any sentence that arrived too neatly.
Eleanor noticed.
“There were two young women in the car.”
“Who was the other one?” he asked.
“Leah Mercer.”
Claire felt the room tilt.
Daniel looked at her.
Eleanor did too.
Claire’s mouth had gone dry.
“My last name is Mercer.”
“I heard it when Daniel introduced you earlier.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I thought it was coincidence.”
Claire laughed once.
This time the sound did escape.
“Coincidence.”
Eleanor lowered her gaze.
“The body recovered from the car was identified as Evelyn.”
“By who?”
“My husband.”
“Your husband.”
“Charles.”
Claire knew the name.
Everyone in Boston knew some version of the name. Charles Harrow had spent forty years building hotels, commercial property, private clubs, and the kind of political friendships that appeared in photographs after people died.
He had been dead six years.
Eleanor said, “The second woman was never found.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Leah Mercer.”
“Yes.”
Claire shook her head.
“My mother’s name was Evelyn Mercer.”
Eleanor stared at her.
Claire’s mind began producing fragments she did not want.
A social security card kept in a locked metal box.
A birth certificate with a crease through the middle.
Her mother refusing to attend parent nights if the school requested identification.
A childhood in three states before Claire turned nine.
Evelyn’s anger when a bank employee once asked whether Mercer was her maiden name.
It had not seemed mysterious then.
It had seemed like her mother.
“She changed her last name,” Claire said.
Eleanor’s voice was nearly inaudible.
“Or took Leah’s.”
Daniel said, “Don’t.”
Both women looked at him.
“We don’t know that.”
He spoke to Eleanor, but Claire understood the warning belonged to all of them.
Eleanor nodded.
“You’re right.”
Daniel pulled a chair out for Claire.
She remained standing.
He did not insist.
Eleanor looked at the small stone again.
“My husband told me Evelyn’s pendant had been recovered with the body.”
Claire held it tighter.
“He told me it was damaged. The funeral director said Charles wanted her buried with it.”
“You didn’t see it?”
“No.”
“But you said you watched them bury it.”
“I watched them bury the coffin.”
Eleanor’s voice thinned.
“I believed it was inside.”
Claire stared at her.
Twenty-three years of certainty had just collapsed into one distinction.
Daniel asked, “Was the casket open?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“The body had been in the river.”
No one spoke for a moment.
From beyond the library doors came a muted swell of music as the ballroom program resumed. Whoever was running the gala had apparently decided that philanthropy could survive a family resurrection as long as the auction schedule remained intact.
Claire looked down at herself.
The red dress suddenly felt absurd.
She had bought it used two weeks earlier and altered the straps in Daniel’s kitchen while he cooked pasta. Evelyn would have approved of the price and objected to the dry-cleaning bill.
Eleanor said, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“When is your birthday?”
Daniel shifted.
Claire said, “March fourth.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
Only a little.
She pressed two fingers against her lips.
“What?”
Eleanor did not answer immediately.
“What?”
“My daughter disappeared in June.”
Claire felt cold.
Evelyn had always told her she was born three weeks early.
Daniel pulled his phone from his pocket.
Claire looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing yet.”
He put it face down on a side table.
“That’s the point.”
Eleanor looked at Claire.
“If your mother was my Evelyn, she would have been pregnant when she left.”
Claire took a step backward.
“No.”
“I’m not saying—”
“No.”
Daniel moved between them slightly.
Claire shook her head.
“My mother would have told me.”
Eleanor’s expression was unreadable.
“Would she?”
It was not cruel.
That made it worse.
Claire turned toward the door.
Daniel followed.
“Claire.”
“I need air.”
Eleanor stood.
Claire faced her.
“Don’t follow me.”
Eleanor stopped.
Claire opened the door.
Samuel straightened outside.
He looked from Claire to Daniel and then very deliberately at the floor.
“Is there another exit?”
Claire asked.
“Yes, miss.”
“Please.”
He led them through a service corridor behind the ballroom, past stacked glassware and two caterers pretending not to listen.
At the end of the hall, Samuel opened a side door.
Cold night air struck Claire’s face.
She stepped outside.
Daniel came after her.
The door closed.
For several seconds they stood beside a loading area behind one of the most expensive hotels in Boston while a refrigerated truck hummed twenty feet away and someone inside dropped what sounded like a tray of forks.
Claire began laughing.
Daniel watched her.
“I know.”
“I’m wearing eighty-dollar shoes to find out my mother might have been dead for twenty-three years.”
“Technically, you’re wearing my sister’s shoes.”
That made her laugh harder.
Then she covered her face.
Daniel waited.
When she lowered her hands, she was crying.
Not hard.
She hated that grief still found new ways to make her feel stupid.
Daniel stepped closer.
This time she let him hold her.
“My mother was not Evelyn Harrow.”
He rested his chin against her hair.
“Okay.”
“She hated rich people.”
“I’ve met rich people. That doesn’t rule anything out.”
Claire pulled away and wiped beneath her eyes.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“She clipped coupons.”
“Very suspicious.”
“Daniel.”
“I’m trying to keep you breathing.”
She looked at him.
He stopped smiling.
“You don’t have to decide anything tonight.”
“She knew that name.”
“Maybe.”
“She had to.”
“Probably.”
Claire looked back toward the hotel.
“She never told me.”
“No.”
The word sat between them.
Daniel did not soften it.
That was another thing she loved and occasionally hated about him.
Her phone vibrated inside the tiny purse hanging from her shoulder.
Then again.
Then three times in quick succession.
Daniel looked at it.
Claire did not move.
“Don’t.”
“Okay.”
May you like
It vibrated again.
She opened the bag.
