Chương 4
“Did Derek hit you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did anyone else?”
“I don’t know.”
Ellis nodded without showing disappointment.
“That’s okay.”
Arianne opened her eyes.
“Is he arrested?”
“No.”
Baldric’s head came up.
Ellis looked at him.
“We don’t have probable cause for an arrest based only on what we know so far.”
“The bruises—”
“Mr. Hale.”
Her voice was firm but not hostile.
“I said so far.”
Baldric leaned back.
Arianne stared at the blanket.
“Then he still has Gideon.”
Ellis’s expression changed slightly.
“That’s what we need to talk about.”
Baldric felt the room contract.
“Where is my grandson?”
“At the residence.”
“With Derek?”
“With the child’s grandmother and a nanny, according to the information we have.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Ellis looked at him.
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Dad.”
Baldric ignored Arianne.
“He just put her in a hospital.”
Ellis lowered her pen.
“And if I remove a child from a home without legal grounds, I risk making the situation harder for your daughter tomorrow.”
Baldric stood.
Arianne said his name again.
He stopped.
Ellis continued.
“A child-services investigator has been contacted because the incident occurred in a home with a minor present.”
“When?”
“They have an on-call worker.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Baldric looked at the clock.
4:41.
He hated clocks in hospitals.
They turned fear into measurable units.
Ellis stood as well.
“If Gideon witnessed violence, that matters.”
Arianne’s face went white.
“He was in his room.”
“Are you sure?”
“I put him there.”
“Did you lock the door?”
“No.”
“Could he have come out?”
Arianne did not answer.
Baldric remembered the small face at the upstairs window.
He sat down again.
Arianne saw something in him.
“What?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“I saw him.”
Her breathing changed.
“Where?”
“At the window.”
“When?”
“When they were putting you in the ambulance.”
“Was he crying?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
Arianne turned her face away.
Baldric reached toward her and stopped before touching her shoulder.
Ellis put away her notebook.
“I’m going to check on the child-services response.”
After she left, Arianne stared toward the dark window.
“He saw something.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He always comes out when we fight.”
Baldric said nothing.
“He hides behind the upstairs chair.”
She pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“I should have taken him sooner.”
“He has a mother trying to get him out.”
“I had six months.”
“You had a husband making you afraid you’d lose him.”
“I still had six months.”
Baldric wanted to argue.
Instead he poured water into the plastic cup.
His hand shook enough to spill some on the tray.
Arianne watched him wipe it with a tissue.
“You’re scared.”
“Of course I’m scared.”
“You never say that.”
“I’m trying something new.”
Arianne almost smiled.
It vanished quickly.
“What did you do outside?”
Baldric stopped wiping the tray.
“What do you mean?”
“You made a call.”
He folded the damp tissue once.
“You heard that?”
“Bertha did.”
“What did she say?”
“That you were pretending to be important.”
Baldric looked at his daughter.
There had never been a good time to tell her everything.
When she was young, secrecy had been protection.
When she got older, it became habit.
Then pride got mixed into it, though he disliked admitting that part.
He had enjoyed knowing people underestimated him.
It made business negotiations easier.
It also made him feel clever.
Cleverness looked different from a hospital chair.
“Arianne, there are things about my finances you don’t know.”
Her eyebrows drew together.
“How much money did you lose?”
Despite everything, he laughed.
Arianne stared at him.
“That’s not funny.”
“No.”
He wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm.
“No, it’s not.”
“What are you talking about?”
Baldric set the tissue down.
“I didn’t retire from the garage because I was tired of working.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“You do?”
“You were terrible at retirement.”
“That’s true.”
“You rebuilt a transmission three weeks after your retirement party because you said television was making you stupid.”
“That transmission needed rebuilding.”
“It belonged to the mailman.”
“He needed his truck.”
“Dad.”
Baldric took a breath.
“The garage became a fleet-maintenance company.”
“I know that.”
“It became more than that.”
Arianne waited.
“I bought two small trucking companies during the recession.”
Her expression did not change.
“Then warehouses.”
Still nothing.
“Then distribution contracts.”
Arianne blinked.
Baldric continued because stopping would make it worse.
“Most of it sits under holding companies.”
“How much is most?”
“I don’t know how to answer that without sounding ridiculous.”
“Try.”
He looked toward the door.
“Several hundred million in assets.”
Arianne stared at him.
Somewhere down the hall, a machine began beeping.
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“You live in a two-bedroom house.”
“I like my house.”
“You drive a truck that leaks oil.”
“It doesn’t leak oil.”
“It leaves spots in my driveway.”
“That’s power-steering fluid.”
She stared at him another second.
Then, impossibly, she started laughing.
The sound turned into a wince.
She held her ribs.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“You’re secretly rich, but you won’t fix the truck.”
“The truck runs.”
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ve heard worse tonight.”
Her laughter died.
The room changed again.
Arianne looked at him carefully.
“Does Derek know?”
“No.”
“Bertha?”
“No.”
“Roger?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
Baldric picked up the folded tissue and unfolded it without reason.
“Roger knows the companies that own several of his key logistics contracts.”
“But he doesn’t know you own those companies.”
“No.”
Arianne’s eyes sharpened.
“What did you tell your lawyer to do?”
“Review every agreement connected to the Vances and enforce the provisions Roger has been asking us to ignore.”
“Dad.”
“I’m not inventing violations.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
He met her gaze.
“I told them to stop protecting him from the consequences of the ones that already exist.”
May you like
Arianne pushed herself higher against the pillows.
“You can’t destroy his family because of me.”
