Chương 8
“Yes.”
“And now?”
Clara looked toward the corridor where Olivia had disappeared.
“No.”
Chen’s expression remained neutral, but his voice softened.
“Did you photograph it?”
“No.”
“Tell anyone?”
“No.”
The shame arrived before he could ask.
Clara pressed her palms together despite the sting.
“I thought I was protecting those kids.”
Chen closed the notebook.
“You ran down a staircase after a stroller.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked it, and Clara watched his expression tighten slightly.
“What?”
Chen hesitated.
“They recovered deleted camera files from the home system.”
Clara’s pulse jumped.
“How many?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“From today?”
“Some from today.”
“And others?”
He did not answer directly.
“Detectives are reviewing them.”
Clara understood enough.
She leaned back against the pillow.
Across the emergency department, someone paged a respiratory therapist.
A child began crying two bays away.
The sound made Clara’s entire body tense.
Chen noticed.
“That isn’t Emma.”
“I know.”
She had not known until he said it.
Chen stood.
“I’ll have someone update you when we can.”
“Is Vanessa still at the station?”
“Yes.”
“Has she said anything?”
“I can’t discuss her interview.”
Clara nodded.
He moved toward the curtain.
“Officer?”
Chen turned.
“Was today planned?”
His face did not move.
“That’s part of what they’re trying to determine.”
After he left, Clara sat alone for several minutes.
She watched her own reflection in the dark edge of the television screen.
Without the cap and apron, perhaps she would have looked like any injured woman waiting in an emergency room.
With them, she looked exactly like what Adrian had seen in the foyer.
Staff.
Someone standing too close to something expensive.
The thought was petty.
She knew it was petty.
It stayed anyway.
Adrian appeared twenty minutes later holding two coffees.
He stopped when he saw her expression.
“Bad time?”
“Probably.”
He set one cup on the counter.
“I brought you coffee.”
“I don’t drink hospital coffee.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then why did you buy two?”
“I panicked.”
Clara looked at the cup.
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
Adrian smiled faintly, then seemed guilty for doing so.
“How’s Emma?”
“Sleeping.”
“Really sleeping?”
“The doctor says yes.”
He sat in the chair Olivia had used.
“They’re keeping her overnight.”
“Good.”
“I called my sister.”
Clara looked at him.
“Rachel?”
“She’s driving in.”
“From Baltimore?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Clara nodded.
Rachel was one of the few people in Adrian’s family who had ever spoken to the household staff as though conversation did not require permission.
“She can stay with Olivia?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Good.”
Adrian wrapped both hands around his coffee.
“Ruiz called me.”
Clara waited.
“They found older video.”
“How old?”
“Three weeks.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
His thumb pressed into the cardboard cup.
“They showed me one clip.”
Clara said nothing.
Adrian’s face had gone gray.
“Vanessa left Emma alone in the bathtub.”
Clara felt her throat close.
“For how long?”
“Forty-seven seconds.”
Relief and horror collided strangely.
Less than a minute.
Far too long.
“Was the water running?”
“No.”
“Was she sitting up?”
“Yes.”
Clara’s eyes burned.
“Why did she leave?”
“She went to answer her phone.”
Adrian stared into his coffee.
“She came back.”
Clara’s voice sharpened.
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
“She could have drowned.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t there.”
His head lifted.
“No.”
The word was quiet.
“I wasn’t.”
Clara looked away.
She had meant it as an accusation.
He accepted it as fact.
That made her angrier.
“Stop agreeing with me.”
Adrian blinked.
“What?”
“Be defensive.”
“I don’t have anything to defend.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“You have a whole life to defend.”
His fingers tightened around the cup.
Clara continued because she was tired and frightened and suddenly cruel.
“You have all those calls, all those meetings, all those dinners where you say you’ll be home before bedtime and then you aren’t.”
Adrian’s face changed.
“You don’t know everything about my marriage.”
“No.”
“But you think you do.”
“No.”
“You think I abandoned them.”
“I think Olivia thinks you did.”
That silenced him.
Clara immediately wished she could take it back.
Adrian looked toward the floor.
After a long moment he said, “She told you that?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“She didn’t want you in the room.”
He absorbed the sentence without moving.
Clara looked at his hands.
The coffee cup was bending under his grip.
“Adrian.”
He loosened his fingers.
“I kept thinking Vanessa was overwhelmed.”
Clara said nothing.
“She said she needed more help.”
“So you hired me.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“She said she felt replaced.”
Clara looked at him.
He continued.
“I thought that meant by you as a parent.”
“It did.”
“Not only that.”
Clara understood before he finished.
She felt heat rise into her face.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not saying there was anything.”
“There wasn’t.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
Adrian looked miserable.
“She accused me of being interested in you.”
Clara’s first reaction was anger.
Her second was embarrassment.
Her third was a strange, sharp fear that Vanessa had built an entire private reality around moments Clara had never noticed.
“What did you say?”
“That she was wrong.”
“Did you laugh?”
Adrian looked away.
Clara had her answer.
“You laughed.”
“I thought it was absurd.”
“To you.”
“Yes.”
“To her?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I should have taken her seriously.”
“Not the accusation.”
“I know.”
“The jealousy.”
“I know.”
Clara exhaled.
Outside the bay, shoes approached quickly.
Marisol appeared first.
Olivia was beside her, pale and breathing hard.
Adrian stood.
“What happened?”
Olivia looked at Clara instead of him.
“They found another video.”
Clara’s stomach turned.
Marisol put both hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to—”
“I saw it.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“Olivia.”
She finally looked at him.
Her eyes filled.
“It was my room.”
Adrian went still.
“What was?”
May you like
“The camera.”
Clara felt the meaning come together slowly.
