Chương 8
Claire immediately turned toward him.
"Your hip?"
"Just sore."
"We're leaving."
Samir rose again.
"You can't take that laptop home."
"Watch me."
"I'm not trying to control you."
"You keep saying things that sound exactly like control."
"I'm trying to keep you alive long enough to hate me properly."
Megan looked at him.
"That sounded rehearsed."
"It wasn't."
"It was pretty good."
Under any other circumstances Claire might have smiled.
Instead, she put the laptop into Megan's canvas bag and zipped it shut.
Daniel said, "There was a sticker."
They all looked at him.
"On the dashboard?"
Claire asked.
"No."
He pointed at the laptop.
"Under it."
Megan removed the computer again and turned it over.
The bottom casing was scratched and dusty around the vents.
Near one rubber foot, a faded white inventory sticker carried a handwritten number.
318742.
Daniel shook his head.
"That's not it."
Claire almost laughed from sheer exhaustion.
"Okay."
"It had a seven."
"That has a seven."
"At the beginning."
Megan looked at Claire.
"Evan's car had seventy-something thousand miles."
Claire knew exactly how many.
She hated that she knew.
"Seventy-eight thousand, one hundred forty-two."
Daniel's eyes snapped toward her.
"That's it."
Claire felt the garage return in fragments she had spent four years avoiding.
The smell of deployed airbags.
A police officer asking whether Evan wore corrective lenses.
Broken glass glittering beneath a portable floodlight.
The odometer frozen at 78142.
Megan whispered, "Try it."
"The computer's dead."
"The evidence pouch."
Claire looked at her.
Megan reached into the bag and lifted the sealed plastic pouch.
Inside was a small black USB drive.
"I found this taped beneath the battery compartment three months after the funeral."
"You found it where?"
"In the laptop."
"You said Daniel gave you the laptop that night."
"He did."
"Then why were you opening the battery compartment three months later?"
"Because it wouldn't charge."
Claire stared at her.
Megan's chin trembled.
"I wasn't searching it."
"Why didn't you give any of this to the police?"
"I tried."
"You tried?"
"I called the detective."
"And?"
"He said the crash investigation was closed."
"So you stopped?"
"No."
Megan looked at Samir.
"I called Richard."
Claire closed her eyes.
Of course she had.
Four years ago, calling Richard Vale had been what everyone did when a door refused to open.
He knew judges, hospital executives, donors, attorneys, police commissioners, and the names of people whose titles ordinary families never learned.
"What did he tell you?"
"That Evan had been under a lot of stress."
Claire opened her eyes.
Megan continued.
"He said the drive might contain confidential patient information and that possessing it could expose me to legal problems."
Samir muttered something under his breath.
"What?"
Claire asked.
"He scared her."
Megan laughed bitterly.
"Thank you, doctor."
Samir ignored her.
"Richard knew what was on it."
"You don't know that."
"No."
Samir looked at the pouch.
"But he knew enough to keep her from opening it."
Claire took the USB drive from Megan.
The plastic had been sealed with ordinary evidence tape, not police tape.
"Who packaged this?"
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because I watch television."
Daniel made a strange choking sound.
Claire spun toward him before realizing he was laughing.
It lasted only two seconds.
Then Megan started laughing too.
Claire did not want to.
She did anyway.
The sound came out cracked and exhausted, and Samir stared at the floor while the three of them laughed at a grocery-store evidence pouch in an examination room where nobody had eaten dinner.
When it stopped, Daniel wiped his eyes.
"Sorry."
"Don't be."
Claire sat beside him.
For a moment, she was only his mother again.
His hair smelled faintly of the expensive hotel shampoo from the room where they had dressed for the gala.
One shoelace had come undone.
She bent and tied it.
"Mom, I'm not six."
"Then learn to tie your shoes."
"I know how."
"Evidence suggests otherwise."
He almost smiled.
A knock struck the door twice.
"Ms. Mercer?"
A security officer spoke from the hall.
"We have a private exit available whenever you're ready."
Claire stood.
Samir said, "Where are you going?"
"Somewhere that isn't connected to my father."
"That eliminates half the city."
Megan looked at him.
"Not helping."
Claire put the photograph, envelope, USB drive, and laptop into the canvas bag.
Then she handed the bag to Daniel.
"Keep this with you."
Samir objected immediately.
"Don't put him in the middle."
"He already is."
"That doesn't mean you make him carry evidence."
Claire stopped.
He was right, which made her angrier.
She took the bag back.
"Fine."
Daniel looked at Samir.
"Why did Dad tell Aunt Megan to hide me from you?"
Samir's shoulders sagged.
"He didn't."
"She just said he did."
"He told her not to let me see you because he thought I had betrayed him."
"Had you?"
Samir looked toward Claire.
"Yes."
Nobody moved.
Claire's voice came quietly.
"How?"
"I told Richard about the folder."
Megan swore.
Daniel stared at him.
Claire felt almost nothing at first.
The numbness was worse than anger.
"You called my father?"
"Yes."
"Before he arrived?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Evan was talking about going public with stolen research files, patient data, internal emails, everything."
"So you warned Richard."
"I thought Richard would stop him from destroying his career."
"Evan's career."
"And mine."
There it was.
Small, ugly, human.
Samir rubbed both hands over his face.
"My name was in some of the correspondence."
Claire said, "Doing what?"
"Approving sample transfers."
"Daniel's samples?"
"I didn't know they were his."
"That's convenient."
"It is."
He met her eyes.
"I've hated how convenient it sounds for four years."
Daniel's voice was barely audible.
"Did Dad know?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Samir swallowed.
"He called me a coward."
Daniel considered that.
"Was he right?"
Samir gave a tired nod.
"That night, yes."
Claire picked up her purse.
"Come with us."
Megan stared at her.
Samir did too.
"Why?"
May you like
he asked.
"Because if you're lying, I want you where I can see you."
