Chương 7
Samir looked at him.
"He said your father was wrong."
"Was he?"
"I don't know."
Daniel's face hardened.
"You do that a lot."
A tired sound escaped Samir, almost a laugh.
"Yeah."
He rubbed his eyes.
"I do."
Claire heard voices outside the door.
One belonged to hospital security.
The other was Megan's.
Claire stood so quickly her chair scraped backward.
The door opened.
Megan entered without knocking.
Her hair was still pinned from the gala, but she had changed into sneakers beneath her formal dress and carried a canvas grocery bag.
Claire had seen her sister frightened before.
She had never seen her prepared.
Megan locked the door behind her.
Samir stared at the bag.
"What did you bring?"
"What you should have brought four years ago."
She set it on the examination table.
Inside were three thick file folders, a sealed plastic evidence pouch, and Evan's old laptop.
Claire could only look at it.
She had donated that laptop with the rest of his office equipment six months after his death.
"Megan."
"I lied about one more thing."
Claire touched the edge of the computer.
It still had the shallow dent near the hinge where Evan had dropped it getting out of a cab in Boston.
"Where did you get this?"
Megan's eyes filled, but she did not look away.
"Daniel gave it to me the night Evan died."
Daniel made a sound behind them.
Claire turned.
His face had gone completely blank.
Then he whispered, "I remember where Dad hid the password."
Claire heard herself say, "Where?"
Daniel stared at the laptop as if it might answer for him.
"Dad's password wasn't a word."
Megan pulled the computer closer but did not open it.
"What was it?"
"The mileage."
Claire waited.
Daniel rubbed his thumb along the edge of his new wrist brace.
"On his car."
Samir frowned.
"Which mileage?"
"The day he died."
Nobody spoke.
Daniel looked at Claire.
"He made me read it to him."
A pulse began beating hard behind her left eye.
"When?"
"At the hospital."
Claire's mouth went dry.
"You were here with him?"
Daniel nodded once.
"I think that's why I couldn't remember it right."
Megan lowered herself onto the examination table.
Claire turned on her.
"You told me Daniel was with you that night."
"He was."
"All night?"
Megan's silence answered first.
"Megan."
"Not all night."
Claire stepped away from Daniel because she suddenly did not trust her body to remain gentle.
"Where was my eleven-year-old son while I was driving around looking for my husband?"
"With me."
"You just said—"
"I brought him here."
"Why?"
"Because Evan called him."
Claire looked at Daniel.
"He called you?"
Daniel's face tightened with effort.
"He called Aunt Megan's phone."
Megan spoke quickly.
"He asked to talk to Daniel, and I thought it was strange, but everything was strange that night."
"You brought him to a hospital because Evan asked to speak to him?"
"He said he needed to see him."
"And you didn't call me?"
"You weren't answering."
"I was driving."
"I know that now."
"You knew it then."
"I knew you were angry at him."
Claire laughed once, without humor.
"So you decided my marriage gave you temporary custody?"
Megan flinched.
"That's not fair."
"No, fair would've been telling me where my child was."
Daniel said, "Mom."
She turned too sharply.
He recoiled.
The movement was small, but it stopped her.
Claire pressed her lips together.
"I'm sorry."
Daniel looked down.
Megan wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand and ruined the careful gala makeup that had somehow survived everything else.
"I thought Evan was going to explain why he'd been acting insane for three weeks."
"Did he?"
"No."
"What happened?"
Megan looked at Daniel.
"He was waiting in the employee garage."
Samir stood.
"What level?"
"Four."
His expression changed.
Claire caught it.
"What?"
"That's where Evan and I met."
Megan stared at him.
"No, it isn't."
Samir went still.
"You met him on six."
For several seconds, the only sound was the ventilation system.
Samir said, "I was on four."
"I saw you on six."
"You saw me afterward."
"No."
Megan's voice had lost its tremor.
"I saw you before Evan gave Daniel the laptop."
Samir shook his head.
"You've got the order wrong."
"I don't."
"Four years is a long time."
"It is."
Megan leaned toward him.
"It's long enough to forget that I was standing behind a concrete pillar because Evan told me not to let you see Daniel."
Claire looked from one to the other.
Samir's face had drained of color.
Daniel whispered, "You were yelling."
Megan nodded.
"Yes."
Samir took a step toward the door.
Claire moved in front of it.
"Where are you going?"
"Nowhere."
"Good."
"Claire, don't do this."
"Do what?"
"Turn a frightened eleven-year-old's memory and your sister's memory into a trial."
Megan gave him a hard look.
"You seemed happier when Daniel remembered Richard."
"That's not true."
"It looked true from over here."
Samir opened his mouth and stopped.
Claire had known him for nine years before Evan died.
He had been the friend who brought takeout when Daniel was sick, the doctor who answered texts at two in the morning, the man who once spent forty minutes repairing a toy dinosaur because Daniel had cried when its jaw broke.
After the funeral, Samir disappeared so completely that Claire had eventually stopped being angry and started pretending he had never mattered.
Now she saw something worse than guilt in his face.
Calculation.
Not the calculation of a criminal deciding what lie to tell.
The calculation of a frightened man deciding how much truth he could survive.
"Sit down," she said.
Samir remained standing.
"Please."
He sat.
Megan opened the laptop.
The battery indicator did not light.
"Dead."
"I have a charger in my office," Samir said.
Claire looked at him.
"No."
"It's an old MacBook."
"We'll find another charger."
"Claire, security is outside."
May you like
"Exactly."
Daniel shifted his crutch and winced.
