Part 6
“I’ll do it.”
“You need to remove her from every account.”
“I will.”
“She used your card for the shower.”
“I froze it last night.”
Claire looked at him. “There are other cards.”
Grant’s hesitation answered her.
“How many?”
“Two.”
“In your name?”
“One is. One is attached to the family trust.”
“Can she withdraw cash?”
“Not without approval.”
“Whose approval?”
“Mine.”
“And does the bank always ask you?”
He did not answer.
Claire closed her eyes.
Grant sat in the chair across from her. “I’m calling the trust attorney.”
“Now.”
“Yes.”
He made the call from the hallway.
Claire listened to fragments of the conversation: revoke authorization, review recent transactions, no contact without counsel, preserve records. Grant’s voice was clear and businesslike, the voice he used when a contract failed or a supplier missed a deadline. It sounded efficient. It also sounded like a man building walls after years of leaving doors open.
When he finished, he leaned against the doorframe.
“There were withdrawals.”
“How much?”
“Forty-eight thousand over seven months.”
Claire let out a breath.
“She labeled them medical expenses.”
“Were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You approved them?”
“The bank sends monthly summaries. I didn’t look closely.”
“Because it was Vanessa.”
“Yes.”
“What does she spend that much on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you believe that?”
Grant rubbed the back of his neck. “I know she has debt.”
“What kind?”
“Credit cards. Hotel bills. A lease she broke. Some private loans.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire looked around the guest room. Vanessa had selected every detail in it after Grant bought the penthouse—gray silk wallpaper, low brass lamps, a rug Claire disliked because the edges curled. Vanessa had treated the apartment as shared territory before Claire moved in. Grant had called it helpful. Claire had spent three years pretending not to notice how many drawers still contained his sister’s things.
On the nightstand sat a framed photograph of Grant and Vanessa in their twenties, standing on a dock with their arms around each other. Claire picked it up.
Vanessa looked genuinely happy in the picture. Grant looked sunburned and tired. Behind them, their mother sat beneath an umbrella, blurred by the camera’s focus.
“When was this?”
“The summer before Mom got sick.”
Claire traced a thumb over the wooden frame. “Is that when you started taking care of her?”
“I always took care of her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Grant sat beside her, leaving space between them. “Mom asked me to.”
“What exactly did she ask?”
“To make sure Vanessa wasn’t alone.”
“Not to pay her debts.”
“No.”
“Not to lie for her.”
“No.”
“Not to let her frighten every woman you loved.”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
Claire set the photograph down.
Grant looked at it for a long time. “The week Mom died, Vanessa slept on the floor outside my bedroom. She was twenty-six. Every time I woke up, she was sitting there.”
“That is sad.”
“Yes.”
“It does not make what happened my responsibility.”
“No.”
“Or yours forever.”
He glanced at Claire. “It felt like it did.”
“That is how she survived consequences. By making your guilt feel like a promise.”
Grant lowered his head.
His phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar.
He answered and put it on speaker after identifying the caller as the officer assigned to the report. The building had preserved the hallway footage. The recording showed Vanessa step backward, look toward Claire, and kick the pedestal base with the side of her shoe. Claire moved away as the table fell and lost her balance at the edge of the marble transition. The officer asked whether Claire wanted to provide a formal statement.
“Yes,” Claire said.
Grant looked at her but did not speak.
The officer explained where and when the statement could be taken, then asked whether they knew Vanessa’s current location.
“No,” Grant said.
Claire studied his face.
After the call ended, she asked, “Do you?”
“No.”
“Would you tell them if you did?”
“Yes.”
He answered too quickly.
Claire waited.
Grant looked toward the hallway. “There is one place she might go.”
“Where?”
“Our parents’ house.”
“You said it was empty.”
“It is. We’ve been preparing to sell it.”
“Does she have a key?”
“I thought she returned it.”
“Grant.”
“She probably has a copy.”
“Call the officer back.”
He did.
Vanessa was not at the house when officers checked later that afternoon, but a rear door had been opened recently. A bedroom window was unlatched. One of the neighbors had seen a dark car leave before noon. No one could say who had been inside.
Grant’s attorney advised him not to go there. The police advised the same. He agreed, then spent twenty minutes pacing the living room as though he might leave anyway.
Claire lay on the sofa with a glass of water and counted movements beneath her ribs. Ten. Then twelve. The baby seemed more active than usual, or perhaps she had never paid such frightened attention before.
Grant stopped near the windows. “She used to hide in that house.”
“When?”
“Whenever she thought someone was angry.”
“Did she have a place?”
“The attic above the garage.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Yes.”
“Then let them do their job.”
He looked at Claire. “You sound calm.”
“I’m not.”
“I know.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He corrected himself. “You look calm.”
“I’m trying not to raise my blood pressure.”
Grant sat in the armchair opposite her. “I want to go find her.”
“Why?”
“To make sure she doesn’t do something worse.”
“To us or to herself?”
He looked away.
Claire felt a hard knot of anger. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where she becomes the emergency again.”
“I’m not saying she is.”
“You don’t have to.”
“She is unstable.”
“She was stable enough to check the camera angle.”
Grant stood. “I’m not defending her.”
“You are preparing to rescue her.”
“I’m trying to prevent another disaster.”
“She created this one.”
May you like
“I understand that.”
“Then stay here.”
