Chương 9
“You think I made this happen,” she said in his apartment.
“You hit Mara.”
“I did not erase her records. I did not abandon her at a church.”
“No.”
“Then stop looking at me as though I’m your mother.”
Julian stood by the window, watching traffic move below.
“I’m looking at you as someone who believed she had the right to punish an employee before asking a question.”
Celeste’s eyes hardened. “And you believed your family’s silence because it was comfortable.”
He turned.
The accusation landed because it was true.
Celeste continued. “You are making me the simple villain because you don’t know what to do with the complicated one.”
“I’m not making you anything.”
“You enjoyed me when I was useful. I planned your events, charmed your donors, remembered the names of every wife you forgot. You called me decisive. Now the same instinct embarrasses you.”
“Decisive is not the same as violent.”
“No. It isn’t.”
She sat on the arm of a chair and looked suddenly tired.
“I saw that locket and Eleanor looked terrified. Do you understand? Eleanor. Terrified. I thought someone had broken into your family. I thought that girl was part of it.”
“That girl is my sister.”
“I know that now.”
“You didn’t know anything when you hit her.”
Celeste’s face folded for one second, then recovered.
“My father taught me that hesitation is how people take from you.”
“And mine taught me silence is how people disappear.”
Neither had an answer for the other.
Julian removed the engagement ring from the drawer where Celeste had placed it after the reception.
“I think we should postpone the wedding.”
She stared at the ring in his palm.
“Postpone?”
He could not say cancel. Not yet.
Celeste understood the weakness.
“You still want the option of me when this becomes less ugly.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No. It’s accurate.”
She took the ring, closed her fingers around it, and left.
Three days later, Peter Leland requested a meeting with Simone.
He arrived carrying no files. Simone made him sit beneath a framed print of a red bicycle, which seemed to annoy him.
Mara watched him remove his gloves finger by finger.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“You owe me records.”
“Some no longer exist.”
“Convenient.”
“Predictable, after nineteen years.”
Simone leaned back. “Mr. Leland, before you minimize missing evidence, remember that you contacted my client at home after being instructed not to.”
He looked at Mara.
“I went because I wanted to warn you.”
“About what?”
“Eleanor intended to control the information. Julian intended to expose it without understanding the consequences. I thought you should know both.”
“You ignored my email.”
“I investigated it.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I did not know whether you were genuine.”
“You could have asked for a DNA test.”
“I could have.”
His willingness to admit small failures made Mara distrust him more. He was selecting what to surrender.
“What happened to Lydia?” she asked.
Leland looked toward Simone.
“She asked you,” Simone said.
Leland folded his gloves and placed them on his knee.
“Curtis Dane was not supposed to take the rural road. Lydia became frightened when she realized they were not heading toward the station. She demanded to leave the car. He refused. She struck him. He pulled over.”
“And then?”
“He said she ran.”
“With a three-year-old?”
“No. He said you remained in the car.”
Mara felt the blood leave her hands.
“Eleanor said Lydia took me.”
“Eleanor repeated the version I gave her.”
“Why?”
“Because I did not trust Curtis.”
Leland’s voice remained controlled, but his thumb rubbed against the seam of one glove.
“According to him, Lydia ran toward the river. You were crying. He panicked. He drove to St. Agnes because he knew the parish from childhood. He left you beneath the covered entrance with the photograph and locket.”
“You knew.”
“Not immediately.”
“When?”
“The next day.”
Mara stood.
Simone said her name, but she could not sit.
“You knew where I was.”
“I knew where he claimed he left you. When I went to St. Agnes, you had already been transferred to county services. Staff would not release information to me.”
“You were a lawyer.”
“I was a private citizen with no legal relationship to you.”
“You could have told them my name.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Leland looked down at his gloves.
“Because Curtis said Lydia had threatened to expose the agreement. If I identified you, authorities would investigate. I believed I could locate you quietly through records.”
“Did you?”
“For several months.”
“Then?”
“Eleanor told me to stop.”
Mara’s laugh was quiet and disbelieving.
“And you stopped.”
“Yes.”
“Did Curtis kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead. He died six years ago.”
The room became painfully ordinary. A truck backed up in the alley, beeping three times. From the bakery below came the smell of sugar and hot bread.
Leland reached inside his coat.
Simone’s posture changed.
He withdrew a sealed envelope and placed it on the desk.
“Curtis wrote a statement before he died. He sent it to me with instructions to destroy it.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why keep it?” Simone asked.
“Cowardice, perhaps. Or insurance.”
“Against Eleanor?”
“Against everyone.”
Mara did not touch the envelope.
“What does it say?”
“That he grabbed Lydia when she tried to leave. She struck her head against the car door. She ran afterward. He believed she was injured but alive. He left Rose at the church and returned to search for Lydia. He could not find her.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I believe he wrote it.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“Why bring it now?”
Leland looked at Mara for a long time.
“Because you appeared.”
The answer disgusted her.
Not because it was false. Because it might have been the closest thing to truth he had said.
“You all waited for me to become impossible to ignore.”
May you like
Leland did not deny it.
Simone preserved the envelope without opening it in his presence. She documented when and how it had been received. Later, with Mara’s permission, she provided a copy to the authorities along with Eleanor’s letters and the DNA result.
