Chương 6
“For about thirty seconds, yes.”
“That’s all it took.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“I locked it, Rachel.”
His voice rose.
The officer shifted near the door.
Daniel lowered it again.
“I turned the key. I heard it click. You were on the other side telling me to stop treating you like you were fragile, and I turned the key anyway.”
Rachel looked at the wall.
“Why didn’t you open it when I started screaming?”
Daniel’s face broke slightly.
“Mom took the key.”
Rachel turned back.
“What?”
“She took it from me after I locked the door.”
“I saw it in your hand.”
“She gave it back when you broke the bottle.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She said you’d calm down if we stopped arguing through the door.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“At the time?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Rachel felt something inside her go very quiet.
“Why did you keep looking at her?”
He did not ask what she meant.
“You saw that.”
“I saw everything.”
“I’ve spent my entire life looking at her before I make the wrong move.”
There it was.
Almost an explanation.
Rachel refused to let it become absolution.
“You’re thirty-two.”
“I know.”
“You’re about to become a father.”
“I know.”
“No. You became one last night.”
He flinched.
“Have you seen her?”
“Through the NICU glass.”
“You didn’t go in?”
“They said you had to approve visitors.”
“I would have approved you.”
“I didn’t want to assume.”
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“Now you discover boundaries.”
Daniel accepted that too.
She hated him for making it difficult to hate him cleanly.
“Who called 911?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Who knew?”
“My mother. Leah. Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“Dr. Sloane.”
“How?”
“Mom told him.”
“Anyone else?”
He hesitated.
Rachel leaned forward despite the pain.
“Daniel.”
“Nora.”
“Your mother’s assistant?”
“She was in the room when Mom called Sloane.”
Rachel remembered Nora Bell as a quiet woman in her early sixties who had worked for Margaret longer than Daniel had been old enough to drive. Nora carried two phones, wore comfortable shoes with expensive suits, and had once saved Rachel from a forty-minute conversation with a donor by pretending the florist needed her urgently.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you last see her?”
“At the reception. Before you went upstairs.”
“What did she say?”
Daniel looked toward the officer.
Then back at Rachel.
“She asked me whether I was sure I wanted to do what my mother was asking.”
Rachel’s pulse changed.
“What did you say?”
“I told her to mind her own business.”
The answer sat between them.
Ugly.
Credible.
Daniel rubbed his face.
“I was angry. I knew Mom was crossing a line, and Nora saying it out loud made it harder to pretend she wasn’t.”
Rachel studied him.
“Was there something in the water?”
“What water?”
“The water Margaret sent upstairs.”
“I didn’t know she sent anything.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
Rachel watched his eyes.
Daniel had looked directly at her when lying about small things before.
The expensive bottle of bourbon he dropped.
The fact that he hated the wallpaper Rachel chose.
A surprise birthday dinner he was terrible at hiding.
Now he held her gaze.
She could not tell.
That frightened her more than catching him.
“You need to leave.”
“Rachel—”
“Leave.”
He stood.
At the door he stopped.
“Evelyn has your nose.”
Rachel looked away.
“Don’t use her to make me forgive you.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You always think intent is the same thing as consequence.”
Daniel stood very still.
Then he left.
The laboratory results came back that afternoon.
There was nothing unusual in Rachel’s blood that suggested poisoning.
The sealed bottle from the room contained ordinary water.
The open glass on the vanity contained water and traces of a commercial electrolyte powder.
Nothing more.
Detective Vasquez told her because Rachel asked.
“So the dispatcher warning was wrong.”
“Cautious,” Vasquez said. “Not necessarily wrong.”
“Whoever called thought Margaret had drugged me.”
“That appears to have been the concern.”
“And they were mistaken.”
“About the drink, yes.”
Rachel stared at the hospital tray.
An untouched cup of gelatin trembled slightly every time someone walked heavily through the corridor.
“Then why did the caller know I was going to bleed?”
Vasquez sat.
“We found Nora Bell.”
Rachel looked up.
“She made the call?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked for an attorney before giving a statement.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“She was worried she might be.”
“For what?”
“Helping lock the door.”
Rachel’s skin chilled.
“Nora?”
“She says she did not lock it. But she did move the spare key.”
Rachel remembered brass beneath the sink.
“Why?”
“According to her, Mrs. Monroe told her to remove it from its normal hook inside the linen closet.”
Rachel’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“Why would Margaret do that?”
“Nora says Mrs. Monroe did not want you letting yourself out.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“And Nora hid it under the sink instead of taking it away.”
“Yes.”
“So she was helping me.”
“Eventually.”
The word mattered.
Rachel opened her eyes.
“What does that mean?”
Vasquez glanced at her notes.
“Nora knew about the plan for almost an hour and initially went along with it.”
Rachel said nothing.
“She believed Mrs. Monroe intended to keep you upstairs until the private physician arrived. She says she objected, but she still followed instructions.”
“Until?”
“She saw blood on a cloth in the downstairs powder room.”
Rachel stared.
“What cloth?”
“A hand towel. You used the bathroom shortly before going upstairs?”
Rachel remembered.
She had.
She had seen another tiny streak of blood and folded the towel over it without thinking.
No.
Not without thinking.
She had hidden it.
From herself.
From everyone.
Because dinner had just ended and Daniel was waiting to dance with her.
Nora had found it.
“She knew I was already bleeding.”
May you like
“Yes.”
“Then why did she tell 911 I would start bleeding during the reception?”
