Chương 2
“You should file a complaint with the United States Army.”
Margaret gave Daniel a warning look.
Daniel took a sip of coffee and discovered it had gone cold.
“Terrible idea,” he said. “They’ll make you fill out a form.”
Rachel would have laughed if laughing had not hurt her ribs.
Instead she let the corner of her mouth move.
Ethan saw.
So did Daniel.
The city beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed offensively normal. Buses moved through intersections. Construction cranes swung steel over a new tower. A helicopter crossed between buildings and disappeared. The private hospital suite had pale marble on one wall, discreet medical equipment recessed into cabinetry, and a sitting area nicer than Rachel’s first apartment.
Margaret had insisted on the room.
Rachel suspected guilt had something to do with it even before she knew what her mother felt guilty about.
Ethan stayed almost constantly.
That was the worst part.
He brought flowers Rachel did not like and placed them where nurses had to move them to reach the IV pump. He answered questions meant for her. He told visiting relatives she had been working too hard. He corrected Margaret’s retelling of the accident whenever Margaret forgot some small detail.
He also asked about Rachel’s belongings five times.
Not all at once.
That would have been stupid.
Ethan was rarely stupid.
The first time, he asked a nurse whether Rachel’s purse had come up from emergency intake.
The second time, he asked Margaret if she had seen Rachel’s keys.
The third time, he told Daniel he needed Rachel’s wallet to deal with the insurance company.
The fourth time, he complained that the hospital had probably lost her phone.
The fifth time, late in the afternoon, he stood near the bed and said lightly, “Your phone got wrecked in the fall, didn’t it?”
Rachel looked at him.
He smiled.
“I think one of the paramedics said that.”
No paramedic had said it in Rachel’s hearing.
She watched him adjust the cuff of his beige suit.
“Too bad,” he continued. “You had everything on that thing.”
Her pulse climbed on the monitor.
The machine betrayed her with three quick beeps.
Ethan looked toward it.
Rachel hated the monitor then.
She hated the cast. She hated needing help to sit up. She hated that a nurse had to stand outside the bathroom when she used it. She hated the way pain medication turned the edges of conversations soft.
More than anything, she hated that she could not remember the last ten minutes before the fall.
There had been an argument.
She knew that.
She remembered Ethan’s voice in the underground garage, too close to her ear.
She remembered saying, “Get away from me.”
She remembered the concrete stairwell door.
Then beige shoes.
Then nothing.
The detective returned on Rachel’s third morning.
Her name was Lena Ortiz. She brought no dramatic promises and did not pretend Rachel’s fragmentary memory was enough.
“I need you to tell me only what you actually remember,” Ortiz said.
Rachel’s voice was still rough.
“Ethan was there.”
“Before you fell?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him push you?”
Rachel looked toward the window.
“No.”
“Did you feel him push you?”
A longer pause.
“I don’t know.”
Ortiz nodded as if that answer helped more than a confident lie.
“Good.”
Rachel frowned.
“Good?”
“It means you’re not filling holes because you want them filled.”
Daniel was in the chair by the door. Margaret was downstairs buying tea. Ethan had gone home to shower after Daniel said he smelled like an airport.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“He told you he wasn’t there.”
“He told me he wasn’t present when you fell.”
“He told me something different before you came in.”
Ortiz’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What?”
“He said he wasn’t even in the garage.”
Rachel swallowed.
“Then he changed it.”
Ortiz wrote that down.
Rachel watched the pen.
“My phone.”
“We logged a phone at the hospital with your other property. Black case, damaged screen.”
Her breath caught.
“Where?”
“Hospital security has the property envelope. Your brother asked about it yesterday.”
Daniel lifted one shoulder.
Ortiz looked at him. “He asked a lot.”
“I’m thorough.”
“You’re annoying.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment.
Ortiz continued, “The phone wasn’t taken as evidence because at that point we had no basis to seize it. If you believe it contains something relevant, we can handle it properly.”
Rachel looked at Daniel.
“Get it.”
Ortiz interrupted.
“Before you do that, I need to know why.”
The room went quiet.
Rachel could hear the small rhythmic clicks from the IV equipment beside her bed.
She had not told Daniel about the lawyer.
She had not told Margaret.
She had not told anyone except Ethan, and even Ethan had learned by accident.
That had been Rachel’s first mistake.
Or perhaps her last ordinary mistake before the larger ones began.
“I had an appointment scheduled for nine the morning after I fell,” she said.
“With whom?”
“An estate lawyer.”
Daniel stopped pretending to read his email.
Ortiz asked, “Why?”
Rachel rubbed her thumb against the edge of the blanket.
“Because my husband had access to money he shouldn’t have had.”
Daniel stood.
“What money?”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“What money?”
She looked at him.
He sat.
Rachel had inherited money from her father, but wealth had never felt like a defining fact of her life because her father had made sure it was inconvenient. Most of it had been placed in trusts with restrictions, advisers, and enough documentation to make spending any significant amount feel like requesting a weapons transfer.
Rachel had been grateful for that.
She had joined the Army at twenty-two in part because she did not want to become a person who mistook access for achievement.
Ethan had admired that about her when they met.
May you like
At least she had believed he did.
Two months before the fall, a quarterly statement showed a transfer authorization Rachel did not recognize involving a jointly managed investment account. The transfer had not gone through. A compliance officer had flagged the signature because it differed from previous documents.
