Chương 4
“That’s my point.”
“No, your point seems to be that because nobody filmed it, the truth has to sit somewhere conveniently in the middle.”
“That is not what I said.”
“You asked what happened.”
“Yes.”
“I told you.”
“And I’m listening.”
“Then listen.”
Daniel was quiet.
Rachel heard a car horn through his end of the call.
He was probably still outside the hospital where he worked, standing near the employee parking garage with one hand pressed against his forehead the way he did when he was angry but trying to look reasonable.
“Is Sophie okay?” he asked.
“She’s shaken up.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“No.”
“Rachel.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you yet.”
“Did she say that?”
Rachel looked toward the bedroom.
“No.”
“Then don’t decide for her.”
The words landed badly.
Rachel’s voice dropped.
“You want to be careful.”
“I know how that sounded.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Daniel swore under his breath.
“I am not defending my mother.”
“You keep doing it in sentences that begin with that.”
“I’m trying not to blow up my entire family based on five minutes I didn’t witness.”
Rachel looked at the framed photograph lying on the kitchen counter.
Her father’s face seemed more familiar now that she had reason to distrust it.
“Your family may have been blown up before I ever met you.”
Daniel went silent.
Rachel waited.
“What does that mean?”
“I found a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“Your mother, you, Claire, Lily, and my father.”
Another silence followed, longer this time.
Rachel could hear Daniel breathing.
“Daniel?”
“I’m here.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Rachel’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Try again.”
“I said no.”
“You didn’t even ask what photograph.”
“I know the one you mean.”
Rachel stopped moving.
The apartment seemed to contract around her.
“Then you knew he was in it.”
“I knew there was a picture of some people at the lake.”
“You knew my father was one of them.”
“I knew his name was Thomas.”
“That was not my question.”
Daniel said nothing.
Rachel stared at the date on the back again.
Eight years ago.
A year before her father’s death.
Five years before she met Daniel.
“What did you know?”
“Rachel, not like this.”
“Like what?”
“Over the phone while you’re furious.”
“I’m furious because your mother hit my daughter.”
“I know.”
“And now I’m holding a photograph proving my father knew your family before you and I ever supposedly met.”
“I know what it looks like.”
Rachel laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“That sentence should never come out of your mouth if you’re trying to make me less suspicious.”
“I didn’t know your father personally.”
“But you knew who he was.”
“Yes.”
Rachel pressed her free hand against the counter.
“How?”
Daniel hesitated.
That hesitation changed everything.
Until then there had still been several harmless explanations available.
A charity event.
A mutual acquaintance.
A forgotten introduction.
Now Rachel could hear him choosing among versions.
“He worked with Claire’s father briefly.”
Rachel frowned.
“My father was an insurance adjuster.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Claire’s dad had a claim.”
“What claim?”
“I don’t remember all the details.”
“Daniel.”
“It was about the lake house.”
Rachel looked toward the photograph.
The background showed water, pine trees, and the cedar porch of a house she had never visited.
“What happened at the lake house?”
“I said I don’t remember.”
“You remember enough to recognize my father’s name eight years later.”
“Because Claire talked about him.”
Rachel felt cold despite the warm apartment.
“Why would your wife talk about an insurance adjuster?”
Daniel did not answer.
From the bedroom, something thumped softly.
Rachel turned.
“Sophie?”
“I’m okay,” Sophie called through the door.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Daniel, I need the truth now.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“That stopped being a useful warning about twenty minutes ago.”
He exhaled.
“Claire believed your father helped my mother hide something.”
Rachel stared at the photograph.
“Hide what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I knew there had been an accusation.”
“What accusation?”
“That money was missing after the lake house fire.”
Rachel gripped the edge of the counter.
“What fire?”
“The house burned down.”
“When?”
“About two months after that picture.”
Rachel looked at her father’s smiling face again.
He had never mentioned a fire.
He had never mentioned Daniel’s family.
He had never mentioned Claire.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“Was it accidental?”
“The official report said electrical.”
“And Claire didn’t believe that?”
“No.”
“What did she believe?”
Daniel was quiet long enough that Rachel nearly said his name again.
“She believed my mother started it.”
Rachel pressed the phone harder against her ear as if the pressure might force Daniel’s words into a shape she could understand.
“Started it how?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because there are pieces I genuinely don’t know.”
“You knew enough to keep this from me.”
Daniel was silent.
Rachel looked again toward the bedroom door.
Sophie had gone quiet.
She could picture her sitting on the edge of Rachel’s old mattress with the rabbit tucked under her chin, listening anyway.
“Why would Claire think Margaret burned down her own family’s lake house?”
“It wasn’t my mother’s.”
“Whose was it?”
“Claire’s father owned it.”
Rachel frowned.
“And your mother was there?”
“She had been staying there on and off that summer.”
“With you?”
“With all of us.”
“All of who?”
“My mother, Claire, Lily when she was a baby, Claire’s parents sometimes.”
Rachel waited.
“And you.”
“Yes.”
His answer sounded tired now.
Not evasive exactly, but worn down by the need to keep opening doors he had once chosen to leave closed.
Rachel picked up the photograph and studied the porch behind them.
Her father stood near the edge of the frame, not posing comfortably with the others.
May you like
His body was angled as if he had been caught walking away.
“Why was my father there that day?”
