Chương 5
Daniel added, “I tried to hit the wall.”
Arthur looked toward the jagged opening down the hallway.
He remembered Christmas music.
Champagne.
Michael telling a story about a senator nobody liked.
Victoria turning the volume up because, she had said, the heating pipes were making that awful knocking sound again.
Arthur slowly raised his eyes.
Victoria was crying now.
Arthur folded the paper once.
Carefully.
Very carefully.
Then he handed the recorder and the note to the police officer.
“Take these.”
Victoria stepped forward.
“Arthur.”
He did not look at her.
“Take them before I do something stupid.”
The officer accepted both.
Arthur sat beside his son again.
Daniel leaned against him.
Arthur put his arm around the boy and listened as the approaching sirens multiplied outside the mansion.
The first detective arrived before the ambulance crew finished securing Daniel to the stretcher.
She introduced herself as Lena Morales, but Arthur barely heard the name because Daniel had started pulling at the blanket when the straps came near his chest.
“No straps,” Daniel said.
Erin stopped immediately.
“They’re just to keep you safe while we move.”
“No.”
Arthur moved closer.
“He doesn’t want them.”
“We can leave the chest strap loose if he stays still.”
Daniel looked at Arthur.
“I’ll stay still.”
Arthur nodded.
“That’s good enough.”
Morales watched the exchange without interrupting.
She was in her forties, compact, dark-haired, and calm in the way people became when they had spent years standing inside other people’s disasters.
The patrol officer handed her the recorder and Daniel’s folded paper.
Morales did not play either.
She slipped them into separate evidence bags.
Victoria noticed.
“You need a warrant for that phone.”
Morales looked at her.
“What phone?”
Victoria’s jaw tightened.
Arthur saw Hannah look down.
Daniel had just given them more than Victoria intended.
Morales turned to the patrol officer.
“Secure the dining room.”
Victoria said, “You cannot search my personal property.”
Morales did not answer her directly.
She looked at Arthur.
“You own the residence?”
“Yes.”
Victoria said, “Jointly used residence.”
Arthur ignored her.
Morales said, “Do you consent to a search of the common areas and the concealed room?”
“Yes.”
“Arthur.”
He looked at Victoria.
Her voice had gone low.
“This will destroy the company.”
He almost did not understand the sentence.
The company belonged to a different universe.
Board votes.
Acquisitions.
Quarterly calls.
Hotels where Michael ordered coffee for everyone before anyone else arrived because he liked to create the appearance that a meeting had already begun.
Arthur looked at Daniel’s wrists.
There were faint marks beneath the dirt.
“Then let it be destroyed.”
Victoria stared at him.
Hannah turned toward him too.
Arthur heard the weight of his own answer only after he had given it.
The company had been his father’s.
Then his and Michael’s.
For years Arthur had treated it like a surviving relative.
Something you protected because losing one more piece of the family seemed impossible.
Morales said, “Mr. Hale, I’m going to need you at the hospital when you’re able.”
Arthur nodded.
Daniel’s eyes sharpened at the word hospital.
“You’re coming.”
“I’m coming.”
“You said.”
“I know.”
Daniel watched him for another second.
Then he relaxed enough for Erin to pull the blanket over his legs.
Morales crouched beside the stretcher.
“Daniel, I’m Detective Morales.”
Daniel did not respond.
“You don’t have to talk to me right now.”
His gaze went to the evidence bags.
“My recorder.”
“I’m going to keep it safe.”
“Don’t erase it.”
“I won’t.”
“Michael knows how.”
Morales’s expression changed by only a degree.
“What does Michael know how to do?”
Daniel swallowed.
Arthur touched his shoulder.
“You don’t have to answer.”
Daniel looked at Morales.
“He erased one before.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Morales stood.
“Hannah, can I speak with you?”
Hannah glanced at Arthur.
“Go.”
She followed Morales toward the hallway.
The paramedics began rolling Daniel toward the door.
Arthur walked beside the stretcher.
Victoria stepped into his path.
The patrol officer moved, but Arthur raised a hand.
“I’ve got it.”
Victoria’s face looked different up close.
Without distance, without the polished control, he could see where foundation had cracked near her nose and where dust had settled against the moisture beneath her eyes.
“Michael will know they’re coming.”
Arthur said nothing.
“He always knows.”
“Move.”
“If they take his phone first, you lose everything on it.”
Arthur stopped.
Victoria looked toward Morales.
“Michael keeps backups.”
“Of what?”
She hesitated.
Arthur watched the hesitation.
“Of conversations.”
“You’re asking me to believe he recorded himself committing crimes.”
“No.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
“That he records other people.”
Arthur’s stomach tightened.
Victoria lowered her voice further.
“He has for years.”
“Why?”
“Leverage.”
Daniel was watching them from the stretcher.
Arthur saw it and immediately stepped away from Victoria.
“We’re done.”
She caught his sleeve.
The patrol officer grabbed her wrist.
Victoria recoiled.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Then don’t touch him.”
Arthur looked at the officer.
“Thank you.”
Victoria stared at him as if that courtesy wounded her more than the intervention.
The stretcher rolled outside.
Daylight hit Daniel’s face.
He squinted.
Arthur saw him turn his head toward the sky.
Not dramatically.
Just slowly.
Like he had forgotten its size.
Arthur followed that gaze.
Blue.
Ordinary.
Painfully ordinary.
A landscaper’s truck had stopped at the curb across the street.
Two workers stood beside it, pretending not to watch.
A neighbor in running clothes had paused at the corner.
Within minutes there would be phones, messages, questions.
The world had already begun converting Daniel’s survival into information.
Arthur climbed into the ambulance.
Erin looked at him.
“One family member.”
“I’m his father.”
She nodded and closed the doors.
Daniel’s eyes stayed on the narrowing strip of daylight until the latch sealed.
The ambulance moved.
Arthur sat beside him.
For the first few blocks neither of them spoke.
Machines clicked softly.
Erin checked Daniel’s blood pressure again.
Daniel stared at Arthur’s hand.
“You’re bleeding.”
May you like
Arthur looked down.
The cut from the wall had opened.
