Chương 4
He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Adrian arrived after midnight.
Daniel did not come back.
“What happened to the room after Richard left?” Holbrook asked.
Elena looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“You told me the cufflink was on the library floor.”
“Yes.”
“When did you see it?”
“After the ambulance.”
“Did you touch it?”
“No.”
That was not completely true.
She had touched the edge with a paper napkin before Cal stepped into the room and asked what she was doing.
The cufflink lay near the right leg of the leather chair, one gold face catching the lamplight.
Elena had said, “That’s Daniel’s.”
Cal looked at it.
Then at her.
“Go make coffee.”
“Nobody wants coffee.”
“Then make it for me.”
She stared at him.
He said, “Please.”
The please was worse.
She went.
When she returned, the cufflink was gone.
The smear of blood beside the chair had been wiped away.
“Who cleaned it?” Holbrook asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Was cleaning staff there?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Cal?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was upset.”
Holbrook looked at her for a moment.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
“What did Evelyn say?”
“That Daniel had never been there.”
Holbrook’s eyes sharpened.
“To whom?”
“To Adrian.”
Elena told her about it.
Adrian came into the house at 12:41 a.m., still wearing the clothes he had worn to dinner with investors downtown. His hair was wet from rain. Someone had called him from the hospital before he reached the house.
He walked directly into the library.
Evelyn stood near the windows.
Cal stood by the fireplace.
Elena remained near the kitchen doorway because no one had told her to leave.
Adrian looked at the carpet.
“Where did he fall?”
Evelyn said, “Here.”
She pointed beside the sofa.
Not beside the leather chair.
Elena looked at Cal.
Cal looked at her.
Adrian asked, “Was anyone with him?”
Evelyn answered before Cal could.
“No.”
Adrian turned.
“No one?”
“I was upstairs.”
“Cal?”
“Security room.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
She opened her mouth.
Cal said, “She came in after we called the ambulance.”
Elena stared at him.
He did not look back.
Adrian rubbed both hands over his face.
“Where’s Daniel?”
Evelyn said, “I called him. He’s at his apartment.”
“He wasn’t here?”
“No.”
That was when Elena understood that the lie was not panic.
It was a plan.
She said nothing.
Holbrook let the silence sit between them.
Finally she asked, “Why didn’t you correct them?”
Elena looked at the angel again.
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
She gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Do you want the list alphabetically?”
Holbrook said nothing.
Elena rubbed her thumb against a rough edge of her fingernail.
“My mother uses the health insurance I get through the household employment company. My sister lives in an apartment owned by one of Mr. Cole’s companies. I’ve worked for them nine years. Half the references I have are people who would call Mrs. Cole before they called me.”
“Were you threatened?”
“Not then.”
“Later?”
Elena looked toward the closed door.
“Yes.”
Cal found her in the pantry at one thirty in the morning.
He closed the door behind him.
“Elena.”
“I’m going home.”
“You’re upset.”
“My boss died.”
“You saw an argument.”
“I saw Daniel.”
“You saw Daniel visit his parents.”
“I saw blood.”
Cal’s voice stayed calm.
“That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“What do I think it means?”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Go home. Sleep. Tomorrow, you’ll understand this differently.”
She had disliked him in that moment for sounding like a man explaining gravity.
“What happened to the cufflink?”
He stared at her.
“What cufflink?”
That frightened her.
Not because the lie was good.
Because it was bad.
Bad lies meant the person telling them believed the truth did not matter.
The next afternoon, Evelyn asked Elena to help prepare the clothes Richard would be buried in.
She spoke gently.
Too gently.
“Last night was confusing.”
Elena folded a white shirt.
“Yes.”
“Richard and Daniel had disagreements.”
Elena said nothing.
“Families do.”
“Yes.”
“What happened between them was private.”
“Mr. Cole died.”
Evelyn looked at her.
“I know.”
Then she sat on the edge of Richard’s bed.
For the first time in nine years, Elena saw her shoulders sag.
Not elegantly.
Not in a way meant to communicate grief.
They simply dropped.
“He was difficult,” Evelyn said.
Elena kept folding.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not asking you to be.”
Evelyn touched the pearls at her throat. She wore them often, even at home, a single strand Richard had given her on their twentieth anniversary.
“Daniel did not kill his father.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“No.”
Evelyn looked toward the closet.
“But people will.”
“Why?”
“Because that is what people do when they see two facts beside each other. They build a bridge.”
Elena stopped folding.
“Was Daniel there?”
Evelyn met her eyes.
“No.”
It was such a clean lie that Elena almost respected it.
Almost.
That evening at the funeral home, Elena saw Cal enter the preparation corridor carrying Richard’s garment bag.
She had gone to the service kitchen to leave bottled water for the next morning.
She watched through the partly open door as Cal stepped into the room where the coffin had been placed after embalming and dressing.
He was inside less than three minutes.
When he came out, his right hand was empty.
Elena went in.
The coffin was closed then.
The white lacquer gleamed beneath fluorescent lights.
Nothing looked disturbed except the silver nameplate.
One screw sat slightly higher than the other.
Elena touched it.
Loose.
She almost removed the plate that night.
Then she heard Cal’s shoes in the hallway.
She left.
By morning, she had convinced herself she could still walk away.
Then Evelyn’s assistant texted asking her to help at the funeral.
That made the decision for her.
Holbrook stopped the recorder.
“You should have called us last night.”
May you like
“I know.”
“You should not have removed the plate yourself.”
