Chương 6
The medical words moved around me without entering. Risks of bleeding. Infection. Vascular injury. Stroke. Terms that sounded technical until I remembered each one could become Elena’s body.
Claire signed.
Kline left.
Celia leaned back and closed her eyes.
Claire gathered the papers into a neat stack.
“Where are the messages?” I asked.
“Elena kept the phone.”
“I need it.”
“You need many things.”
“Claire.”
“She told me if anything happened, I was to give it to the police.”
“Then call them.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You would allow that?”
“If someone used my identity to threaten her, I want them found.”
“And if finding them exposes what else your company does?”
Celia opened her eyes.
Jonas studied the wall.
Claire saw the answer before I gave it.
“You haven’t changed,” she said.
“I didn’t say no.”
“You didn’t have to.”
A nurse entered and spoke quietly to Claire.
Elena had become responsive during sedation reduction. Only briefly. They were allowing Claire into the intensive care unit.
Claire stood.
I stood with her.
“No,” she said.
“I need to see her.”
“She does not need to see you.”
“She wrote my name on intake.”
“She wrote Adrian because she was afraid the baby would die without accurate family history.”
“That is still my name.”
Claire’s mouth tightened.
“I’ll ask her.”
She left.
The room became unbearable.
Celia went to find coffee. Jonas stepped into the hallway to speak with his team. I stayed at the table and stared at the indentation Claire’s pen had left on the consent form.
Madison entered ten minutes later.
She had changed into hospital-issued sweatpants beneath her silver dress. The combination would have been funny on anyone else.
“The doctor says I’m not pregnant,” she said.
I looked at her.
“It was an early loss. Chemical pregnancy. The pain is from an ovarian cyst.”
“I’m sorry.”
She pressed her lips together.
“You sound like you’re apologizing to someone whose flight was delayed.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Nothing. Apparently that is what I had.”
I stood.
“Did you access my secure account?”
“No.”
“What movie did you watch?”
She looked toward the door.
“Madison.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember what you wore to a dinner in Hong Kong four years ago.”
“That is my job.”
“It was your job.”
Her head snapped back.
“You’re firing me?”
“I’m asking whether you used my account to send orders about Elena.”
“I said no.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“No.”
“Claire has messages sent from my phone threatening to take the baby.”
For a fraction of a second, Madison looked relieved.
Not shocked.
Relieved.
I saw it.
She saw me see it.
“I didn’t send those,” she said.
“I didn’t ask whether you sent them.”
Her eyes filled, but the tears did not fall. Madison had trained herself never to cry until she had decided what the tears were for.
“I found an email,” she said.
The consultation room seemed to shrink.
“What email?”
“From a prenatal clinic. It went to your old household account because Elena never changed the billing contact. I was helping the staff close inactive subscriptions.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Madison.”
“I deleted it.”
I walked toward her.
She backed into the wall.
“Why?”
“Because I had spent two years watching you destroy every room she had ever stood in.”
“What does that mean?”
“You kept her clothes in the west closet. You kept her tea in the kitchen even though no one drank it. You paid the gardener to replace the white roses after she moved out because she had planted them. You said her name when you were asleep.”
My chest tightened.
Madison gave a small, broken laugh.
“You made me compete with someone who wasn’t even there.”
“So you deleted a medical email.”
“It was a billing notice. I thought she had missed a payment.”
“You knew what clinic it came from.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do after you deleted it?”
She looked down.
I caught her chin and forced her face upward.
Celia entered carrying coffee.
“Take your hand off her.”
I did.
Madison rubbed the red mark beneath her jaw.
Celia set the cups down.
“What did you do?” she asked.
Madison’s voice became smaller.
“I told Victor.”
The room went quiet.
“Why Victor?” I asked.
“Because he knew how to manage you.”
“Manage me.”
“He said if Elena came back pregnant, the press would turn it into a succession crisis. The lenders would panic. The board would question whether she had influence. He said you would run back to her and burn down every deal we had spent years building.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed you loved her.”
That answer was true enough to be useless.
“What did Victor ask you to do?”
“Give him the email.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Think carefully.”
Madison began to cry then, not elegantly.
“He asked whether Elena had contacted you. I checked your blocked messages.”
“You blocked her?”
“She was already blocked.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I added her new number when it appeared.”
A pressure built behind my eyes.
“How many times did she call?”
“Three.”
“When?”
“Over two weeks.”
“Did she leave messages?”
Madison covered her mouth.
Celia sat down slowly.
“What did the messages say?” I asked.
“She wanted to meet.”
“What else?”
“She said she had found something in the company accounts. She said she didn’t know who to trust.”
“And you deleted them.”
“Yes.”
My hands were no longer shaking.
That frightened me more.
Madison slid down the wall until she sat on the floor.
“I thought she wanted money.”
“She had forty million dollars from the divorce.”
“I thought she wanted you.”
“She did not need to call three times to have me. She could have walked through the front door.”
Madison looked up.
“That is exactly what I was afraid of.”
May you like
I turned away.
On the table, one of Celia’s coffees had leaked through the lid. A brown ring spread across the papers.
