Chương 2
Juliette saw the question forming.
“Don’t.”
Her voice had changed.
The pleading remained, but fear had entered it.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Christopher gave Emma to Teresa only after the girl finally loosened her grip.
“Take her inside.”
“Sir—”
“Stay with her.”
Teresa nodded.
“Don’t leave her alone.”
“I won’t.”
“And tell the paramedics exactly what happened when they arrive.”
Teresa hesitated.
Her eyes flicked toward Juliette.
Christopher saw that too.
“Exactly what happened,” he repeated.
Teresa carried Emma toward the mansion.
Christopher waited until his daughter disappeared through the French doors.
Then he turned.
Juliette was already shaking her head.
“Chris, she slipped.”
“You tried to murder my daughter.”
The courtyard seemed to contract around the words.
Nina made a small sound behind them.
Juliette’s eyes widened.
“No.”
Christopher stepped toward her.
“You stood there.”
“No.”
“You stood there while she drowned.”
“That isn’t what happened.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
“I have been trying to tell you.”
“No, you keep giving me one sentence.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
Her hands rose toward his forearms again.
“Chris, please.”
He knocked them away.
Juliette flinched.
Something ugly and primitive surged through him, faster than thought.
His open hand crossed the space between them.
The slap cracked across the courtyard.
Juliette’s head snapped sideways.
Her hair whipped across her face.
One heel slid on the wet stone.
She reached for Christopher instinctively, missed him, stumbled backward, and fell hard onto her hip before rolling partly onto her side.
Nobody moved.
Christopher stared at his own hand.
It seemed detached from him.
Juliette slowly lifted her face.
One palm pressed against the stone.
The other hovered near her cheek without touching it.
She looked less hurt than astonished.
Christopher had never struck her before.
He had never struck any woman.
For one second, the fury inside him collided with the fact of what he had just done, and neither emotion displaced the other.
Juliette’s eyes filled.
“You hit me.”
Christopher’s fingers curled.
He lowered his hand.
From inside the mansion came Emma’s coughing.
That sound mattered more than anything else.
Christopher turned toward it.
Juliette spoke behind him.
“I didn’t push her.”
He stopped.
The sentence was wrong.
Not because he knew it was false.
Because he had never accused her of pushing Emma.
Christopher turned slowly.
Juliette seemed to hear her own mistake at the same moment.
Her lips parted.
Nina looked away.
Christopher’s anger became suddenly cold.
“Who said she was pushed?”
Juliette remained on the ground.
“I meant—”
“Who said that?”
“No one.”
“You did.”
“I’m frightened.”
“So is Emma.”
“You just hit me.”
“Yes.”
The word tasted poisonous.
Christopher looked at his hand again.
“I did.”
For the first time, shame cut cleanly through his rage.
He took one step backward.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Juliette stared at him as if the apology frightened her more than the blow.
He did not offer his hand.
He did not trust himself close to her.
A siren became audible beyond the gates.
Christopher glanced toward the mansion.
When he looked back, Juliette was watching Nina.
Not him.
Nina noticed.
Her face drained of color.
Christopher followed the silent exchange between the two women.
“Nina.”
She froze.
Juliette pushed herself upright.
“Christopher, leave the staff out of this.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t see everything.”
Nina whispered, “I saw enough.”
Juliette closed her eyes.
Only for an instant.
But Christopher saw it.
“What did you see?”
Nina’s mouth trembled.
The approaching siren grew louder.
“I saw Miss Emma in the water.”
Christopher waited.
Nina looked toward the French doors as though wishing Teresa would return and answer for her.
“And?”
“She was holding the edge.”
Christopher felt the muscles in his shoulders lock.
“What edge?”
“The pool edge.”
“When?”
Nina’s eyes met his.
“Before you came outside.”
Juliette stood now, one hand pressed against her cheek.
“She’s confused.”
Nina shook her head.
“I’m not.”
Christopher barely heard Juliette.
“If Emma was holding the edge, how did she end up in the middle of the pool?”
Nina began crying harder.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you saw.”
“I saw Mrs. Vale standing over her.”
Juliette’s expression hardened.
“Nina.”
The warning in her voice was quiet.
Christopher turned toward Juliette.
For years he had known that tone.
She used it with contractors who overcharged them, with charity board members who tried to embarrass her, with a caterer who had once served shellfish after being explicitly told a guest had a severe allergy.
It was the voice Juliette used when she expected obedience.
Nina heard it too.
This time she did not obey.
“She told Emma to let go.”
Christopher did not move.
The siren stopped outside the gates.
Somewhere near the front of the house, tires ground against gravel.
Juliette said, “That is not what I said.”
Nina wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“You said, ‘Let go, Emma.’”
“I was telling her to let go of my bracelet.”
Christopher looked at Juliette’s wrist.
A thin gold bracelet circled it.
The clasp was intact.
A red petal had landed beside her shoe.
Neither of them noticed when the French doors opened behind Christopher.
Teresa called his name.
He turned immediately.
Two paramedics were entering with equipment.
Emma sat wrapped in towels on a chair just inside the doorway, wet hair hanging around her small face.
Her eyes found her father.
Christopher started toward her.
Then Emma saw Juliette standing behind him.
The child’s expression changed.
She did not cry.
She simply pulled the towel higher around herself and said, very quietly, “Don’t let her come inside.”
Christopher did not turn around.
The paramedics were already kneeling beside Emma, but every adult in the doorway heard her.
Juliette stopped three paces from the threshold.
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Emma watched her over the edge of the towel, her small fingers clenched so tightly in the fabric that her knuckles had gone white.
One paramedic, a gray-haired woman named Parker according to the badge clipped to her shirt, glanced from the child to Christopher.
